Presentation + Paper
13 December 2020 Development and status of MAPS, the MMT AO exoPlanet characterization system
Katie M. Morzinski, Manny Montoya, Chuck Fellows, Olivier Durney, John Ford, Grant West, Andrew Gardner, Amali Vaz, Narsireddy Anugu, Emily Mailhot, Jared Carlson, Lori Harrison, Frank Gacon, Elwood Downey, Phil Hinz, Terry Jones, Jenny Patience, Suresh Sivanandam, Shaojie Chen, Masen Lamb, Adam Butko, Siqi Liu, Tim Hardy, Buell Jannuzi
Author Affiliations +
Abstract
We are upgrading and refurbishing the first-generation adaptive-secondary mirror (ASM)-based AO system on the 6.5-m MMT in Arizona, in an NSF MSIP-funded program that will create a unique facility specialized for exoplanet characterization. This update includes a third-generation ASM with embedded electronics for low power consumption, two pyramid wavefront sensors (optical and near-IR), and an upgraded ARIES science camera for high-resolution spectroscopy (HRS) from 1-5 μm and MMT-POL science camera for sensitive polarization mapping. Digital electronics have been incorporated into each of the 336 actuators, simplifying hub-level electronics and reducing the total power to 300 W, down from 1800 W in the legacy system — reducing cooling requirements from active coolant to passive ambient cooling. An improved internal control law allows for electronic damping and a faster response. The dual pyramid wavefront sensors allow for a choice between optical or IR wavefront sensing depending on guide star magnitude, color, and extinction. The HRS upgrade to ARIES enables crosscorrelation of molecular templates to extract atmospheric parameters of exoplanets. The combination of these upgrades creates a workhorse instrument for exoplanet characterization via AO and HRS to separate planets from their host stars, with broad wavelength coverage and polarization to probe a range of molecular species in exoplanet atmospheres.
Conference Presentation
© (2020) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Katie M. Morzinski, Manny Montoya, Chuck Fellows, Olivier Durney, John Ford, Grant West, Andrew Gardner, Amali Vaz, Narsireddy Anugu, Emily Mailhot, Jared Carlson, Lori Harrison, Frank Gacon, Elwood Downey, Phil Hinz, Terry Jones, Jenny Patience, Suresh Sivanandam, Shaojie Chen, Masen Lamb, Adam Butko, Siqi Liu, Tim Hardy, and Buell Jannuzi "Development and status of MAPS, the MMT AO exoPlanet characterization system", Proc. SPIE 11448, Adaptive Optics Systems VII, 114481L (13 December 2020); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2563178
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CITATIONS
Cited by 1 scholarly publication.
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KEYWORDS
Adaptive optics

Exoplanets

Electronics

Wavefront sensors

Actuators

Cameras

Polarization

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