High-contrast imaging results with the vortex coronagraph

The vortex coronagraph has already enabled high-contrast observations very close to bright stars on large ground-based telescopes, and it also has great potential for use on coronagraphic space missions aimed at exoplanet detection and characterization. As such, demonstrations of vortex coronagraph performance have recently been carried out in JPL’s High Contrast Imaging Testbed. Some of our recent results are presented here, including the suppression of a monochromatic, single-polarization point-source to below the 10^(-9) level over a dark hole covering both the 2-7 λ/D and 3-8 λ/D regions, as well as the suppression of a 10% band of white-light to approximately the 10^(-8) level over a 3-8 λ/D dark hole.