Using Ground-Based Telescopes to Mature Key Technologies and Advance Science for Future NASA Exoplanet Direct Imaging Missions

Ground-based telescopes have been playing a leading role in exoplanet direct imaging science and technological development for the past two decades and will continue to have an indispensable role for the next decade and beyond. Extreme adaptive optics (AO) systems will advance focal-plane wavefront control and coronagraphy, augmenting the performance of and mitigating risk for WFIRST-CGI, while validating performance requirements and motivating improvements to atmosphere models needed to unambiguously characterize solar system-analogues with HabEx/LUVOIR. Specialized instruments for Extremely Large Telescopes may deliver the first thermal infrared images of rocky planets around Sun-like stars, providing HabEx/LUVOIR with numerous exo-Earth candidates and key ancillary information that can help clarify whether the planets are habitable.
Comment: 6 pages and 2 figures; White paper submitted to the Exoplanet Science Strategy study of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine