[en] The small angular distance (<100 mas) and the huge flux ratio (10^7) between an Earth-like exoplanet in the so-called habitable zone and its host star makes it very difficult to direct image such systems. Nulling interferometry consists of a very powerful technique that combines destructively the light from two or more collectors to dim the starlight and to reveal faint companions in its vicinity. We have developed a new nulling experiment based on the fiber nuller principle (Serabyn et al. 2006 , Martin et al. 2008). This fully symmetric reflective nulling bench aims at testing broadband nulling in both H and K bands as well as characterizing photonic fibers for modal filtering. We present in this paper the design, the development as well as preliminary results of the experiment.
Disciplines :
Space science, astronomy & astrophysics
Author, co-author :
Hanot, Charles ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département d'astrophys., géophysique et océanographie (AGO) > Astroph. extragalactique et observations spatiales (AEOS)
