Techniques for High Contrast Imaging in Multi-Star Systems II: Multi-Star Wavefront Control

Direct imaging of exoplanets represents a challenge for astronomical instrumentation due to the high-contrast ratio and small angular separation between the host star and the faint planet. Multi-star systems pose additional challenges for coronagraphic instruments because of the diffraction and aberration leakage introduced by the additional stars, and as a result are not planned to be on direct imaging target lists. Multi-star wavefront control (MSWC) is a technique that uses a coronagraphic instrument's deformable mirror (DM) to create high-contrast regions in the focal plane in the presence of multiple stars. Our previous paper introduced the Super-Nyquist Wavefront Control (SNWC) technique that uses a diffraction grating to enable the DM to generate high-contrast regions beyond the nominal controllable region. These two techniques can be combined to generate high-contrast regions for multi-star systems at any angular separations. As a case study, a high-contrast wavefront control (WC) simulation that applies these techniques shows that the habitable region of the Alpha Centauri system can be imaged reaching 8 times 10(exp -9) mean contrast in 10 percent broadband light in one-sided dark holes from 1.6-5.5 lambda (wavelength) divided by D (distance).