O. Lay (oliver.p.lay@jpl.nasa.gov) is with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, California 91109-0000.
Nulling interferometers combine on-axis suppression with high angular resolution, making them ideal instruments for the direct detection of faint planets close to their parent star. Analysis is developed to show that it is systematic errors, resulting from fluctuations in the null depth, that drive the instrument performance. A second-order combination of amplitude and phase errors is the dominant contributor. In the calculated example, the detection of an Earthlike planet around a Sunlike star at 15 pc requires that the arms of the interferometer must be phased to within ∼1.5 nm and have their amplitudes matched to ∼0.1%.
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Indentation reflects the hierarchical breakdown of the errors; contributions are combined as the root sum square. Values are derived from the parameters listed in Tables
1 and 3, for a single rotation. Excludes stray light, thermal emission, and detector gain fluctuations.
After even harmonics removed.
Indentation reflects the hierarchical breakdown of the errors; contributions are combined as the root sum square. Values are derived from the parameters listed in Tables
1 and 3, for a single rotation. Excludes stray light, thermal emission, and detector gain fluctuations.
After even harmonics removed.