* Astronomy

Title: The EXoplanetary Circumstellar Environments and Disk Explorer (EXCEDE)
Authors: Olivier Guyon, Glenn Schneidera, Ruslan Belikov, Domenick J. Tenerelli

We present an overview of the EXoplanetary Circumstellar Environments and Disk Explorer (EXCEDE), selected by NASA for technology development and maturation. EXCEDE will study the formation, evolution and architectures of exoplanetary systems, and characterise circumstellar environments into stellar habitable zones. EXCEDE provides contrast-limited scattered-light detection sensitivities ~ 1000x greater than HST or JWST coronagraphs at a much smaller effective inner working angle (IWA), thus enabling the exploration and characterisation of exoplanetary circumstellar disks in currently inaccessible domains. EXCEDE will utilise a laboratory demonstrated high-performance Phase Induced Amplitude Apodised Coronagraph (PIAA-C) integrated with a 70 cm diameter unobscured aperture visible light telescope. The EXCEDE PIAA-C will deliver star-to-disk augmented image contrasts of < 10E-8 and a 1.2 L/D IWA or 140 mas with a wavefront control system utilising a 2000-element MEMS DM and fast steering mirror. EXCEDE will provide 120 mas spatial resolution at 0.4 microns with dust detection sensitivity to levels of a few tens of zodis with two-band imaging polarimetry. EXCEDE is a science-driven technology pathfinder that will advance our understanding of the formation and evolution of exoplanetary systems, placing our solar system in broader astrophysical context, and will demonstrate the high contrast technologies required for larger-scale follow-on and multi-wavelength investigations on the road to finding and characterising exo-Earths in the years ahead.

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