Impact of WFIRST-AFTA line-of-sight jitter distributions on phase-induced amplitude apodization complex mask coronagraph science yield

Abstract

A framework for evaluating the science yield of a coronagraph in the presence of a variety of line-of-sight jitter environments is described and the use of a tip-tilt threshold for improving science yield is proposed. The current expectations of the WFIRST-AFTA mission are used for specific distributions of line-of-sight jitter, including the current expectations for tip-tilt correction using a low-order wavefront sensor/control. The effect of the residual tip-tilt on the phase-induced amplitude apodization complex mask coronagraph (PIAACMC) architecture is considered, because the performance of the PIAACMC architecture is expected to be dominated by tip-tilt sensitivity, implying that this treatment has a large impact on the final science yield. The most important outcomes of this study are that the rms residual tip-tilt expected after correction is 0.6 mas rms/axis and that by eliminating some science frames during analysis through a tip-tilt threshold, the number of planets observable increases by ∼25% for the 550-nm imaging channel. The number of known radial velocity planets expected to be observed ranges from 29 to 78 at 550 nm and from 9 to 12 at 890 nm.