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The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Coronagraph Instrument is a critical technology demonstrator for NASA's Habitable Worlds Observatory. With a predicted visible-light flux ratio detection limit of 1E-8 or better, it will be capable of reaching new areas of parameter space for both gas giant exoplanets and circumstellar disks. It is in the final stages of integration and test at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, with an anticipated delivery to payload integration in the coming year. This paper will review the instrument systems, observing modes, potential observing applications, and overall progress toward instrument integration and test., Comment: Proceedings of SPIE: Techniques and Instrumentation for Detection of Exoplanets XI, vol. 12680 (2023)

NASA's next flagship mission, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, is a 2.4-meter observatory set to launch no later than May 2027. Roman features two instruments: the Wide Field Imager and the Coronagraph Instrument. Roman's Coronagraph is a Technology Demonstration that will push the current capabilities of direct imaging to smaller contrast ratios ($\sim$10$^{-9}$) and inner-working angles (3~$\lambda$/D). In order to achieve this high precision, Roman Coronagraph data must be calibrated to remove as many potential sources of error as possible. Here we present a detailed overview of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Coronagraph Instrument Observation Calibration Plan including identifying potential sources of error and how they will be mitigated via on-sky calibrations., Comment: Posting for public information on the current status of the Roman Coronagraph Observation Calibration Plan; latest updates as of July 29, 2022

Operating in an unprecedented contrast regime ($10^{-7}$ to $10^{-9}$), the Roman Coronagraph Instrument (CGI) will serve as a pathfinder for key technologies needed for future Earth-finding missions. The Roman Exoplanet Imaging Data Challenge (Roman EIDC) was a community engagement effort that tasked participants with extracting exoplanets and their orbits for a 47 UMa-like target star, given: (1) 15 years of simulated precursor radial velocity (RV) data, and (2) six epochs of simulated imaging taken over the course of the Roman mission. The Roman EIDC simulated images include 4 epochs with CGI's Hybrid Lyot Coronagraph (HLC) plus 2 epochs with a starshade (SS) assumed to arrive as part of a Starshade Rendezvous later in the mission. Here, we focus on our in-house analysis of the outermost planet, for which the starshade's higher throughput and lower noise floor present a factor of ~4 improvement in signal-to-noise ratio over the narrow-field HLC. We find that, although the RV detection was marginal, the precursor RV data enable the mass and orbit to be constrained with only 2 epochs of starshade imaging. Including the HLC images in the analysis results in improved measurements over RV + SS alone, with the greatest gains resulting from images taken at epochs near maximum elongation. Combining the two epochs of SS imaging with the RV + HLC data resulted in a factor of ~2 better orbit and mass determinations over RV + HLC alone. The Roman CGI, combined with precursor RV data and later mission SS imaging, form a powerful trifecta in detecting exoplanets and determining their masses, albedos, and system configurations. While the Roman CGI will break new scientific and technological ground with direct imaging of giant exoplanets within ~5 AU of V~5 and brighter stars, a Roman Starshade Rendezvous mission would additionally enable the detection of planets out to ~8 AU in those systems., Comment: 25 pages, 6 figures, 1 table, accepted for publication in JATIS

Future direct imaging missions will primarily observe planets that have been previously detected, mostly via the radial velocity (RV) technique, to characterize planetary atmospheres. In the meantime, direct imaging may discover new planets within existing planetary systems that have bright enough reflected flux, yet with insufficient signals for other methods to detect. Here, we investigate the parameter space within which planets are unlikely to be detected by RV in the near future due to precision limitations, but could be discovered through reflected light with future direct imaging missions. We use the HD 134987 system as a working example, combine RV and direct imaging detection limit curves in the same parameter space through various assumptions, and insert a fictitious planet into the system while ensuring it lies between the RV and imaging detection limits. Planet validity tested through dynamical simulations and retrieval tests revealed that the planet could indeed be detected by imaging while remaining hidden from RV surveys. Direct imaging retrieval was carried out using starshade simulations for two mission concepts: the Starshade Rendezvous Probe that could be coupled with the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, and the Habitable Exoplanet Observatory. This method is applicable to any other systems and high contrast direct imaging instruments, and could help inform future imaging observations and data analysis on the discovery of new exoplanets., Comment: 16 pages, 8 figures. Accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journal

Starshade in formation flight with a space telescope is a rapidly maturing technology that would enable imaging and spectral characterization of small planets orbiting nearby stars in the not-too-distant future. While performance models of the starshade-assisted exoplanet imaging have been developed and used to design future missions, their results have not been verified from the analyses of synthetic images. Following a rich history of using community data challenges to evaluate image-processing capabilities in astronomy and exoplanet fields, the Starshade Technology Development to TRL5 (S5), a focused technology development activity managed by the NASA Exoplanet Exploration Program, is organizing and implementing a starshade exoplanet data challenge. The purpose of the data challenge is to validate the flow down of requirements from science to key instrument performance parameters and to quantify the required accuracy of noisy background calibration with synthetic images. This data challenge distinguishes itself from past efforts in the exoplanet field in that (1) it focuses on the detection and spectral characterization of small planets in the habitable zones of nearby stars, and (2) it develops synthetic images that simultaneously include multiple background noise terms -- some specific to starshade observations -- including residual starlight, solar glint, exozodiacal light, detector noise, as well as variability resulting from starshade's motion and telescope jitter. In this paper, we provide an overview of the design and rationale of the data challenge. Working with data challenge participants, we expect to achieve improved understanding of the noise budget and background calibration in starshade-assisted exoplanet observations in the context of both Starshade Rendezvous with Roman and HabEx., Comment: Accepted for publication in the JATIS special issue on starshade / Images simulated for the data challenge can be downloaded from: https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/exep/technology/starshade-data-challenge/

Direct imaging of widely separated exoplanets from space will obtain their reflected light spectra and measure atmospheric properties. Previous calculations have shown that a change in the orbital phase would cause a spectral signal, but whether this signal may be used to characterize the atmosphere has not been shown. We simulate starshade-enabled observations of the planet 47 Uma b, using the to-date most realistic simulator SISTER to estimate the uncertainties due to residual starlight, solar glint, and exozodiacal light. We then use the Bayesian retrieval algorithm ExoReL$^\Re$ to determine the constraints on the atmospheric properties from observations using a Roman- or HabEx-like telescope, comparing the strategies to observe at multiple orbital phases or in multiple wavelength bands. With a $\sim20\%$ bandwidth in 600 - 800 nm on a Roman-like telescope, the retrieval finds a degenerate scenario with a lower gas abundance and a deeper or absent cloud than the truth. Repeating the observation at a different orbital phase or at a second $20\%$ wavelength band in 800 - 1000 nm, with the same integration time and thus degraded S/N, would effectively eliminate this degenerate solution. Single observation with a HabEx-like telescope would yield high-precision constraints on the gas abundances and cloud properties, without the degenerate scenario. These results are also generally applicable to high-contrast spectroscopy with a coronagraph with a similar wavelength coverage and S/N, and can help design the wavelength bandwidth and the observation plan of exoplanet direct imaging experiments in the future., Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication in AJ

We present high-resolution I-band imaging of the core of the globular cluster M15 obtained at the 2.5 m Nordic Optical Telescope with FastCam, a low readout noise L3CCD based instrument. Short exposure times (30 ms) were used to record 200000 images (512 x 512 pixels each) over a period of 2 hours 43 min. The lucky imaging technique was then applied to generate a final image of the cluster centre with FWHM ~ 0".1 and 13" x 13" FoV. We obtained a catalogue of objects in this region with a limiting magnitude of I=19.5. I-band photometry and astrometry are reported for 1181 stars. This is the deepest I-band observation of the M15 core at this spatial resolution. Simulations show that crowding is limiting the completeness of the catalogue. At shorter wavelengths, a similar number of objects has been reported using HST/WFPC observations of the same field. The cross-match with the available HST catalogues allowed us to produce colour-magnitude diagrams where we identify new Blue Straggler star candidates and previously known stars of this class., Comment: 11 pages, 15 figures. Accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

We analyse WMAP 7-year temperature data, jointly modeling the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and Galactic foreground emission. We use the Commander code based on Gibbs sampling. Thus, from the WMAP7 data, we derive simultaneously the CMB and Galactic components on scales larger than 1deg with sensitivity improved relative to previous work. We conduct a detailed study of the low-frequency foreground with particular focus on the "microwave haze" emission around the Galactic center. We demonstrate improved performance in quantifying the diffuse galactic emission when Haslam 408MHz data are included together with WMAP7, and the spinning and thermal dust emission is modeled jointly. We also address the question of whether the hypothetical galactic haze can be explained by a spatial variation of the synchrotron spectral index. The excess of emission around the Galactic center appears stable with respect to variations of the foreground model that we study. Our results demonstrate that the new galactic foreground component - the microwave haze - is indeed present., Comment: 16 pages, 16 figures, Published on ApJ

We show that elementary aligned electromagnetic excitations of black holes, as coming from exact Kerr-Schild solutions, represent light-like beam pulses which have a very strong back reaction on the metric and change the topology of the horizon. Based on York's proposal, that elementary deformations of the BH horizon are related with elementary vacuum fluctuations, we analyze deformation of the horizon caused by the beam-like vacuum fluctuations and obtain a very specific feature of the topological deformations of the horizon. In particular, we show how the beams pierce the horizon, forming a multitude of micro holes in it. A conjecture is taken into consideration, that these specific excitations are connected with the conformal-analytic properties of the Kerr geometry and are at the base of the emission mechanism., Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, final version published in PhysLetB

Kerr-Schild solutions of the Einstein-Maxwell field equations, containing semi-infinite axial singular lines, are investigated. It is shown that axial singularities break up the black hole, forming holes in the horizon. As a result, a tube-like region appears which allows matter to escape from the interior without crossing the horizon. It is argued that axial singularities of this kind, leading to very narrow beams, can be created in black holes by external electromagnetic or gravitational excitations and may be at the origin of astrophysically observable effects such as jet formation., Comment: Revtex, 6 pages, 3 figures. Corrected version. To appear in Phys Rev D, Rapid Communications

Properties of the rotating Kerr-Newman black hole solution allow to relate it with spinning particles. Singularity of black hole (BH) can be regularized by a metric deformation. In this case, as a consequence of the Einstein equations, a material source appears in the form of a relativistically rotating superconducting disk which replaces the former singular region. We show a relation of the BH regularization with confinement formation. By regularization, a phase transition occurs near the core of a charged black hole solution: from external electrovacuum to an internal superconducting state of matter. We discuss two models of such a kind, which demonstrate the appearance of a baglike structure and a mechanism of confinement based on dual Dirac's electrodynamics. First one is an approximate solution based on a supersymmetric charged domain wall, and second is an exact solution based on nonlinear electrodynamics., Comment: 7 pages, Latex, based on plenary talks given by A.B. at the Advanced Study Institute, Spin-02 (Praha, July 14-27, 2002) and at the GRG11 (Russia, Tomsk, July 1-7, 2002)

In this work we study in detail new kinds of motions of the metric tensor. The work is divided into two main parts. In the first part we study the general existence of Kerr-Schild motions --a recently introduced metric motion. We show that generically, Kerr-Schild motions give rise to finite dimensional Lie algebras and are isometrizable, i.e., they are in a one-to-one correspondence with a subset of isometries of a (usually different) spacetime. This is similar to conformal motions. There are however some exceptions that yield infinite dimensional algebras in any dimension of the manifold. We also show that Kerr-Schild motions may be interpreted as some kind of metric symmetries in the sense of having associated some geometrical invariants. In the second part, we suggest a scheme able to cope with other new candidates of metric motions from a geometrical viewpoint. We solve a set of new candidates which may be interpreted as the seeds of further developments and relate them with known methods of finding new solutions to Einstein's field equations. The results are similar to those of Kerr-Schild motions, yet a richer algebraical structure appears. In conclusion, even though several points still remain open, the wealth of results shows that the proposed concept of generalized metric motions is meaningful and likely to have a spin-off in gravitational physics.We end by listing and analyzing some of those open points., Comment: 65 pages

The present work deals with the search of useful physical applications of some generalized groups of metric transformations. We put forward different proposals and focus our attention on the implementation of one of them. Particularly, the results show how one can control very efficiently the kind of spacetimes related by a Generalized Kerr-Schild (GKS) Ansatz through Kerr-Schild groups. Finally a preliminar study regarding other generalized groups of metric transformations is undertaken which is aimed at giving some hints in new Ans\"atze to finding useful solutions to Einstein's equations., Comment: 18 pages

We find the general solution for the spacetimes describing the interior of static black holes with an equation of state of the type $ T^0_0 = T^1_1 $ ($T$ being the stress-energy tensor). This form is the one expected from taking into account different quantum effects associated with strong gravitational fields. We recover all the particular examples found in the literature. We remark that all the solutions found follow the natural scheme of an interior core linked smoothly with the exterior solution by a transient region. We also discuss their local energy properties and give the main ideas involved in a possible generalization of the scheme, in order to include other realistic types of sources., Comment: 31 pages, 1 figure, version to appear in Physical Review D

We show that the Bronnikov theorem on the nonexistence of regular electrically charged black holes can be circumvented. In the frame of nonlinear electrodynamics, we present the exact regular black hole solutions of a hybrid type. They are electrically charged, but contain a `dual' core confining a polarization of magnetic charges. The considered example is based on a modification of the Ay\'on-Beato & Garc\'\i a solution. It represents a very specific realization of the idea on confinement based on dual electrodynamics and dual superconductivity., Comment: 20 pages, 5 figures, Latex, grammatical corrections, estimation of effective radius is corrected, final published version

A unified approach to regular interiors of black holes with smooth matter distributions in the core region is given. The approach is based on a class of Kerr-Schild metrics representing minimal deformations of the Kerr-Newman solution, and allows us to give a common treatment for (charged and uncharged) rotating and nonrotating black holes. It is shown that the requirement of smoothness of the source constraints the structure of the core region in many respects: in particular, for Schwarzschild holes a de Sitter core can be selected, which is surrounded by a smooth shell giving a leading contribution to the total mass of the source. In the rotating, noncharged case the source has a similar structure, taking the form of a (anisotropic and rotating) de Sitter-like core surrounded by a rotating elliptic shell. The Kerr singular ring is regularized by anisotropic matter rotating in the equatorial plane, so that the negative sheet of the Kerr geometry is absent. In the charged case the sources take the form of ``bags'', which can have de Sitter or anti de Sitter interiors and a smooth domain wall boundary, with a tangential stress providing charge confinement. The ADM and Tolman relations are used to calculate the total mass of the sources., Comment: LaTeX, 26 pages, 6 figures

A family of spacetimes suitable for describing the matter conditions of a static, spherically symmetric quantum vacuum is studied, as well as its reliability for describing a regular model for the interior of a semiclassical, static black hole ---without ever invoking a mass shell for the final object. In paper I, this condition was seen to limit the search to only one, distinguished family, that was investigated in detail. Here it will be proven that, aside from being mathematically generic (in its uniqueness), this family exhibits beautiful physical properties, that one would reasonably demand from a collapse process, including the remarkable result that isotropization may take place conveniently far from the (unavoidable) regularization scale. The analysis is also extended in order to include the possibility of a stringy core, always within the limits imposed by the semiclassical approach to gravitation. This constitutes a first approximation to the final goal of trying to characterize a regular, self-gravitating, stringy black hole., Comment: latex, 21 pages

A seemingly natural mechanism is proposed, that could stop the gravitational collapse of a very massive body. Without needing to change the concept of the collapsing process itself, that is, without invoking thin layers nor resorting to asymptoticity (as has been usually done in the literature), it is proven that a model can be built in which the quantum vacuum is able to produce a negative stress that may stop the collapse of the black hole, reaching a final state of the spacetime structure that is a static de Sitter model. The solution is found by looking into a generic family of spacetimes: that of maximal spherically symmetric ones expanded by a geodesic radial null one-form from flat spacetime. They are called here GRNSS spaces, and are proven to constitute a distinguished family of Kerr-Schild metrics. The models considered previously in the literature are easily recovered in this approach, which yields, moreover, an infinite set of possible candidates for the interior of the black hole. First steps towards their semiclassical quantization are undertaken. It is shown that the quantization protocol may be here more easily carried out than within conformal field theory., Comment: latex, 38 pages

A family of spacetimes suitable for describing the interior of a non-rotational black hole is constructed. The stress-energy tensor is that of a spherically symmetric vacuum, as commonly assumed nowadays. The problem of matching the exterior with the interior region is solved exactly, without using any massive shell nor having to restrict oneself to only asymptotically well-behaved solutions, whatsoever. The main physical and geometrical properties of the resulting black hole solutions are described. As models for the interior the general solution found includes, in particular, two known previous atttempts at solving the problem. Finally, effective macroscopic properties of the solution are linked with quantization issues of the corresponding spacetime., Comment: 4 pages, no figures, RevTeX

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