ESCAPE · Exoplanetary Systems with a Coronagraphic Archive Processing Engine

Determining the frequency of life in the Universe is one of the main challenges of the next decades. It requires a large high-contrast imager in space such as LUVOIR or HabEx, able to characterize dozens of nearby earth-like planets. The detection of such planets, 10^-10 fainter than their star and lost in the bright and varying glare of the star in the images, is a formidable challenge. In the race to remove the contaminating starlight, both the coronagraphic instrument and the image processing have a key role to play. Yet, the science and technological definition of these mission concepts relies entirely on the coronagraphic instrument to reject the starlight, assuming a simple gain of 10 in sensitivity with image processing based on 15-year-old techniques developed for HST. The cost of this approach is a daunting wavefront stability requirement of 20pm rms and conservative exoplanet yield estimates.With ESCAPE I propose to develop innovative image processing methods that make use of the specific hardware in these high-contrast imagers (their wavefront sensors and deformable mirrors) and of the data accumulated in their archives to bring a significant gain in starlight subtraction. I will use the unique opportunity of the timely launch of the Roman Space Telescope during the ERC timeframe, which precisely includes the CGI technology demonstrator of high-contrast imaging in space, to demonstrate my methods and achieve 20x improved detection limits. In parallel I will deploy the ESCAPE methods on the public archives of the VLT-SPHERE and JWST NIRCam and MIRI coronagraphic instruments to deliver higher-grade data to the community, obtain new planetary systems discoveries, and constrain the giant planet population on scales yet-unexplored and comparable to the Solar System. These ambitious goals and timeline will pave the way for the implementation of the ESCAPE methods in the future space imaging missions and facilitate the determination of the frequency of life.