Infrared differential imager and spectrograph for SPHERE: performance status with extreme adaptive optics before shipment to ESO/VLT
Résumé
SPHERE (Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet Research) is a second generation instrument for the VLT optimized for very high-contrast imaging around bright stars. Its primary science goal is the detection and characterization of giant planets, together with observation of circumstellar environment. The infrared differential imager and spectrograph (IRDIS), one of the three science instruments for SPHERE, provides simultaneous differential imaging in the near infrared, among with long slit spectroscopy, classical imaging and infrared polarimetry. IRDIS is designed to achieve very high contrast with the help of extreme-AO (Strehl < 90%), coronography, exceptional image quality (including non-common-path aberrations compensation), very accurate calibration strategies and very advanced data processing for speckle suppression. In this paper, we report on the latest experimental characterizations of IRDIS performed with SPHERE/SAXO before the preliminary acceptance in Europe.