OP: Collaborative Research: Active Speckle Control and Fast Speckle Statistics to Drastically Improve the Contrast Ratio of Exoplanet Direct Imaging

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Astronomers would like to image habitable planets around other stars. Turbulence in Earth's atmosphere is the main obstacle to achieving this goal. Such turbulence blurs and confuses light from bright stars with their nearby, dim planets. Adaptive optics can partially correct for turbulence. However, even adaptive optics pushed to its limits (Extreme Adaptive Optics, ExAO) is still insufficient to deliver the required high-contrast images. Mazin and collaborators will develop an innovative control algorithm that makes use of new, highly responsive detectors. This approach will enable ExAO images to separate exoplanets from their parent stars. The resulting algorithm will be tested and used at several observatories. This technology may enable breakthrough advances in ground-based astronomy and allow the discovery of habitable worlds outside our solar system.This proposal is a continuation of Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detector (MKID) research and development that was supported by previous NSF awards (1308556 and1654105). These previous awards supported the instrument development and deployment at Palomar Observatory. This award will develop algorithms and methodology to use the instrument to increase contrast in Extreme Adaptive Optics (ExAO) images of exoplanets. Increasing contrast is the main technical challenge for imaging exoplanets with ExAO. The greatest obstacle is short timescale atmospheric speckles that are uncorrected by the AO system. This proposal will use the fast time response of the MKID detectors to remove speckles from images ex post facto using the photon arrival time statistics. Direct detection and study of Earth-like exoplanets would realize a major goal of astronomy in the coming decade.