Advances in edge diffraction algorithms.

Starshade external occulters are a leading technology that provide the starlight suppression needed to directly image and spectroscopically characterize Earth-sized exoplanets in the habitable zone of nearby stars. A high-priority technology area identified in need of development for a future starshade mission is the development and validation of high-fidelity optical models to predict the performance of a full-scale starshade. We present the generalization of an algorithm to formulate the Fresnel diffraction equation as a one-dimensional integral around the edge of an arbitrary binary diffraction screen.

Limits on achievable intensity reduction with an optical occulter: comment.

An external occulter is used as a means to suppress starlight and enable the observation of faint, Earth-like planets. A recent paper in this journal [J. Opt.

Detection of Earth-like planets around nearby stars using a petal-shaped occulter.

Direct observation of Earth-like planets is extremely challenging, because their parent stars are about 10(10) times brighter but lie just a fraction of an arcsecond away. In space, the twinkle of the atmosphere that would smear out the light is gone, but the problems of light scatter and diffraction in telescopes remain. The two proposed solutions--a coronagraph internal to a telescope and nulling interferometry from formation-flying telescopes--both require exceedingly clean wavefront control in the optics.