Linear and Bayesian Planet Detection Algorithms for the Terrestrial Planet Finder

Abstract

Current plans call for the first Terrestrial Planet Finder mission, TPF-C, to be a monolithic space telescope with a coronagraph for achieving high contrast. The coronagraph removes the diffracted starlight allowing the nearby planet to be detected. In this paper, we present a model of the planet measurement and noise statistics. We utilize this model to develop two planet detection algorithms, one based on matched filtering of the PSF and one using Bayesian techniques. These models are used to formulate integration time estimates for a planet detection with desired small probabilities of false alarms and missed detections.