Extrasolar Planet Finding via Optimal Apodized and Shaped Pupil Coronagraphs

In this paper we examine several different apodization approaches to achieving high-contrast imaging of extrasolar planets and compare different designs on a selection of performance metrics. These approaches are characterized by their use of the pupil’s transmission function to focus the starlight rather than by masking the star in the image plane as in a classical coronagraph. There are two broad classes of pupil coronagraphs examined in this paper: apodized pupils with spatially varying transmision functions and shaped pupils, whose transmission values are either 0 or 1. The latter are much easier to manufacture to the needed