Hunting planets and observing disks with the JWST NIRCam coronagraph
Creators
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1.
Jet Propulsion Lab
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2.
University of Arizona
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3.
Lockheed Martin (United States)
Contributors
Other:
Abstract
The expected stable point spread function, wide field of view, and sensitivity of the NIRCam instrument on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will allow a simple, classical Lyot coronagraph to detect warm Jovian-mass companions orbiting young stars within 150 pc as well as cool Jupiters around the nearest low-mass stars. The coronagraph can also be used to study protostellar and debris disks. At λ = 4.5 μm, where young planets are particularly bright relative to their stars, and at separations beyond ~0.5 arcseconds, the low space background gives JWST significant advantages over ground-based telescopes equipped with adaptive optics. We discuss the scientific capabilities of the NIRCam coronagraph, describe the technical features of the instrument, and present end-to-end simulations of coronagraphic observations of planets and circumstellar disks.
Additional Information
© 2007 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). This work was undertaken at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory with support provided by the NIRCam instrument development team (NASA NAS5-02105). Marc Kuchner provided suggestions for potential band-limited occulter profiles.Attached Files
Published - 66930H.pdf
Files
66930H.pdf
Additional details
Identifiers
- Eprint ID
- 88407
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20180731-151509896
Funding
- NASA
- NAS5-02105
Dates
- Created
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2018-07-31Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-16Created from EPrint's last_modified field
Caltech Custom Metadata
- Caltech groups
- Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC) , Physics Department
- Series Name
- Proceedings of SPIE
- Series Volume or Issue Number
- 6693