PEEPSS — Photonic-Enabled ExoPlanet Spectroscopic Sensor — proposed integrated instrument concept for NASA’s Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO). Lead author genevieve-markees; arXiv:2604.23126; SPIE proceedings DOI 10.1117/12.3064610.
Design
- Uses photonic lanterns to couple coronagraph dark-hole light into single-mode fibers feeding the main spectrograph.
- Simultaneously uses rejected host-star light from inside the dark hole for focal-plane wavefront sensing.
- Combining science (spectroscopy) and wavefront-sensing channels in one photonic system eliminates non-common-path errors between sensing and science arms.
Why it matters
- HWO must achieve ~10⁻¹⁰ star/planet contrast — requires outstanding wavefront measurement and control.
- Particularly advantageous in the near-infrared (NIR) bandpass.
- Coronagraph inner working angle scales as λ/D, so NIR imaging normally suffers larger IWAs than visible — PEEPSS reduces the achievable NIR IWA, expanding accessible exoplanet parameter space for habitable-zone imaging and biosignature spectroscopy.