Pupil replication for exoplanet imaging

Pupil replication is a new optical technique that decreases the diameter of the image of a star on the optical axis. With pupil replication, one can improve the suppression of starlight in high dynamic range exoplanet imaging and image planets closer to their host star. Pupil replication is an auxiliary technique intended to improve the imaging spectroscopic performance of coronographic or pupil apodization techniques. Here we introduce pupil replication and use numerical simulations to show that it may be combined with pupil apodization to improve exoplanet detection and spectroscopy.