In the last thirty years, thousands of extra-solar planets have been detected. The overwhelming majority of these detections were performed by indirect techniques. Only a few tens have been detected by direct methods, because the current technology limitations. The rotational shearing interferometer (RSI) has been proposed as a promising technique for the direct detection of extra-solar planets. The RSI is insensitive to rotationally symmetrical wavefronts. This feature allows it to distinguish between a symmetrical wavefront generated by an star alone and an asymmetrical wavefront generated by a star-planet system. However the aperture and resolution of this method is limited by the size of the Dove prisms. We propose the use of an image-inverting interferometer (III) as alternative to the RSI. The III is equivalent to a RSI with a rotation of pi. It conserves the detection features of the RSI. Additionally the III uses mirrors instead Dove prisms avoiding its size limitations.

Date Published: 9 September 2019
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 11128, Infrared Remote Sensing and Instrumentation XXVII, 1112805 (9 September 2019); doi: 10.1117/12.2526138

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 11128:
Infrared Remote Sensing and Instrumentation XXVII
Marija Strojnik; Gabriele E. Arnold, Editor(s)