Predicting contrast sensitivity to segmented aperture misalignment modes for the HiCAT testbed

International audienceThis paper presents the setup for empirical validations of the Pair-based Analytical model for Segmented Telescope Imaging from Space (PASTIS) tolerancing model for segmented coronagraphy. We show the hardware configuration of the High-contrast imager for Complex Aperture Telescopes (HiCAT) testbed on which these experiments will be conducted at an intermediate contrast regime between 10-6 and 10-8. We describe the optical performance of the testbed with a classical Lyot coronagraph and describe the recent hardware upgrade to a segmented mode, using an IrisAO segmented deformable mirror. Implementing experiments on HiCAT is made easy through its top-level control infrastructure that uses the same code base to run on the real testbed, or to invoke the optical simulator. The experiments presented in this paper are run on the HiCAT testbed emulator, which makes them ready to be performed on actual hardware. We show results of three experiments with results from the emulator, with the goal to demonstrate PASTIS on hardware next. We measure the testbed PASTIS matrix, and validate the PASTIS analytical propagation model by comparing its contrast predictions to simulator results. We perform the tolerancing analysis on the optical eigenmodes (PASTIS modes) and on independent segments, then validate these results in respective experiments. This work prepares and enables the experimental validation of the analytical segment-based tolerancing model for segmented aperture coronagraphy with the specific application to the HiCAT testbed