From Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2018
With many thousands of exoplanets discovered one of the important next steps in astronomy is to be able to characterise them. This presents a great challenge and calls for new observational capabilities with both high angular resolution and extreme high contrast in order to efficiently separate the bright light of a host star to that of a faint companion. Glint South is an instrument that uses photonic technology to perform nulling interferometry. The light of a star is cancelled out by means of destructive interference in a photonic chip. One of the challenges is the star light injection into the chip. This is done by a unique active system that optimises the injection and provide low order correction for the atmospheric turbulence. We are reporting on the latest progress following several tests on the Anglo Australian Telescope.
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Tiphaine Lagadec, Barnaby Norris, Simon Gross, Alexander Arriola, Thomas Gretzinger, Nick Cvetojevic, Jon Lawrence, Michael Withford, and Peter Tuthill, "GLINT South: a photonic nulling interferometer pathfinder at the Anglo-Australian Telescope for high contrast imaging of substellar companions," Proc. SPIE 10701, Optical and Infrared Interferometry and Imaging VI, 107010V (Presented at SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation: June 12, 2018; Published: 9 July 2018); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2313171.