DARKNESS: Dark-Speckle Near-IR Energy-resolved Superconducting Spectrophotometer

DARKNESS：暗斑近红外能量分辨超导分光光度计

• 批准号: 1308556
• 负责人: Benjamin Mazin
• 金额: $ 74.5万
• 依托单位: University of California-Santa Barbara
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2013-09-15 至 2018-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1308556&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: DARKNESS; Dark; Speckle; Near; IR

An exciting approach to studying planets around other stars exploits recent technical advances in adaptive optics to directly image the exoplanets while the spatially concentrated but very bright light from the nearby star is suppressed by a coronagraph. Outstanding technical and theoretical progress in recent years has allowed this approach to achieve extremely high contrast, and thus detect very faint companions to stars. This approach to hunting for stellar companions is in some ways complementary to the well-established radial-velocity technique, and may be able to unearth different classes of exoplanets and determine different things about them. The combination of multiple state-of-the-art technologies will make the instrument being built here capable of substantially better contrast than competing instruments, and make it the first capable of high contrast coronagraphy at visible wavelengths.Coronagraphic capabilities are leveraged from the existing and well-proven PALM-3000 (P3K) extreme adaptive optics system operating at the Palomar Observatory. The detector technology is very novel, making use of recent developments in superconducting Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors (MKIDs) that can spectrally resolve the wavelengths intrinsically (with no external dispersing optics) of the optical/near-infrared light that they see. These detectors also provide microsecond time resolution, all with zero read noise and zero dark current photon counting that enable a mode of coronagraphy known as Dark Speckle, which originated in the mid-90?s and appears promising for suppressing focal-plane speckles as needed for companion detection. The overall project combines multiple exciting and novel technologies to attack one of the most pressing scientific problems in modern astronomy.This project will have broad appeal to the public by the nature of the science, and will train undergraduate and graduate students as well as a post-doctoral fellow.Funding for this project is being provided by NSF's Division of Astronomical Sciences through its Advanced Technologies and Instrumentation program.

一种令人兴奋的方法来研究其他恒星周围的行星，利用了自适应光学技术的最新技术进步，以直接对系外行星进行成像，而冠状动脉抑制了附近恒星的空间浓缩但非常明亮的光线。 近年来，杰出的技术和理论进步使这种方法可以实现极高的对比度，从而发现了非常微弱的伴侣。 这种寻找恒星同伴的方法在某种程度上是对良好的径向速度技术的互补方法，并且可能能够发掘出不同类别的系外行星并确定有关它们的不同事项。 多种最先进的技术的组合将使这里的乐器比竞争乐器具有更好的对比度，并使其成为第一个能够在可见波长处具有高对比度的冠状动脉的能力。Coronagraphic能力从现有和良好的Palm-3000（P3K）（P3K）极高适应性的Optics System在Palomar observity运行的现有和良好的Palm-3000（P3K）。 探测器技术非常新颖，利用了超导微波动力学检测器（MKIDS）的最新发展，这些探测器（MKIDS）可以在光学/近红外光中本质上（没有外部分散光学元件）来频繁地解决它们所见的光学/近红外光（没有外部分散光学）。 这些探测器还提供了微秒的时间分辨率，所有探测器都具有零读取噪声和零黑电流光子计数，从而实现了一种被称为Dark Spearkle的冠状模式，该模式起源于90年代中期，并且似乎有望根据需要根据需要根据需要抑制焦点平面斑点。 整个项目结合了多种令人兴奋和新颖的技术，以攻击现代天文学中最紧迫的科学问题之一。该项目将通过科学的性质对公众的广泛吸引，并将通过NSF的天文学科学和仪器提供培训该项目的本科生和研究生和研究生。