Performance predictions and contrast limits for an ultraviolet high-contrast imaging testbed

NASA’s Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) concept and the 2020 Decadal Survey’s recommendation to develop a large space telescope to “detect and characterize Earth-like extrasolar planets” require new starlight suppression technologies to probe a variety of biomarkers across multiple wavelengths. Broadband absorption due to ozone dominates Earth’s spectrum in the mid-ultraviolet (200 to 300 nm) and can be detected with low spectral resolution. Despite the high value of direct ultraviolet (UV) exoplanet observations, high-contrast coronagraph demonstrations have yet to be performed in the UV. Typical coronagraph leakage sources such as wavefront error, surface scatter, polarization aberrations, and coronagraph mask quality all become more significant in the UV and threaten the viability of HWO to produce meaningful science in this regime. As a first step toward a demonstration of UV coronagraphy in a laboratory environment, we develop an end-to-end model to produce performance predictions and a contrast budget for a vacuum testbed operating at wavelengths from 200 to 400 nm. At 300 nm, our model predicts testbed performance of ∼3×10−9 contrast in a narrow 2% bandwidth and ⪅10−8 in a 5% bandwidth, dominated primarily by the chromatic residuals from surface errors on optics that are not conjugate to the pupil.