New polychromatic test bench for DARWIN/TPF nulling interferometer laboratory demonstration

摘要

Several concept of space missions dedicated to the direct detection and analysis of extrasolar planets are based on nulling interferometry principle. This principle, which is theoretically very promising, requires the capability of transfering and combining beams with very high accuracy, in terms of amplitude phase and polarization. In order to validate the principle of nulling interferometry, it is necessary to develop laboratory techniques of recombination. In this paper, we present a new test bench principle and mock-up that should allow measuring rejection rate up to 10~5 in a large spectral band between 2 and 4 Jim.