Visible-Light High-Contrast Polarimetry with MagAO-X: Characterization and Initial Results

Miles Lucas; Laird Close; Jared R. Males; Tiago Gualberto Bezerra de Souza; Rodrigo Pereira; Jialin Li; Joseph D. Long; Jaren N. Ashcraft; Kyle Van Gorkom; Olivier Guyon; Sebastiaan Y. Haffert; Alexander D. Hedglen; Rob G. van Holstein; Parker T. Johnson; Maggie Kautz; Jay Kueny; Briley L. Lewis; Joshua Liberman; Jennifer Lumbres; Eden McEwen; Avalon L. McLeod; Maxwell A. Millar-Blanchaer; Lauren Schatz; Katie Twitchell; Manxuan Zhang

arXiv · 2608.06579

Visible-Light High-Contrast Polarimetry with MagAO-X: Characterization and Initial Results

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Abstract

MagAO-X is a visible-light extreme adaptive optics instrument on the 6.5 meter Magellan Clay Telescope, recently upgraded to enable high-contrast polarimetric differential imaging (PDI) in r', i', and z' filters. Polarimetry is a powerful technique for suppressing unpolarized starlight and isolating the faint, polarized signal scattered by circumstellar dust, but it demands precise calibration of instrumental polarization effects introduced by the telescope and instrument optics. We present an overview of the MagAO-X polarimeter and characterize its polarimetric response using a purpose-built polarization generator that injects light of a known polarization state. From these measurements, we fit a Mueller-matrix model of the instrument and quantify its polarimetric efficiency and instrumental polarization as a function of the k-mirror image rotator angle and observing filter. The initial characterization revealed significant, dynamic inefficiencies driven by the image rotator, motivating the deployment of a dual rotating quarter-wave plate (DQWP) compensator that dynamically reorients the input polarization to the instrument's eigenpolarization. Following installation of the DQWP, we measured an average increase in polarimetric efficiency of +17.5% (to 87.4%) and a reduction in instrumental polarization of -5.4% (to 8.3%) across all filters. Finally, we demonstrate the on-sky performance of the polarimeter with i' imaging of the debris disk around HR 4796, producing one of the closest inner-working-angle views of the bright, forward-scattering side of the disk. These results help pave the way for polarimeters on future extremely large telescopes such as GMT and ELT.

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Miles Lucas, Laird Close, Jared R. Males, Tiago Gualberto Bezerra de Souza, Rodrigo Pereira, Jialin Li, Joseph D. Long, Jaren N. Ashcraft, Kyle Van Gorkom, Olivier Guyon, Sebastiaan Y. Haffert, Alexander D. Hedglen, Rob G. van Holstein, Parker T. Johnson, Maggie Kautz, Jay Kueny, Briley L. Lewis, Joshua Liberman, Jennifer Lumbres, Eden McEwen, Avalon L. McLeod, Maxwell A. Millar-Blanchaer, Lauren Schatz, Katie Twitchell, Manxuan Zhang. 2026-08-06. Visible-Light High-Contrast Polarimetry with MagAO-X: Characterization and Initial Results. https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.06579

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