End-to-end performance simulations of infrared vortex coronagraphs for extremely large telescopes.

Since the first discovery of an exoplanet in the 1990s, the number of confirmed exoplanets
has increased exponentially, with several ground-and space-based missions
dedicated to exoplanet detection. Most of these detections have been obtained via
indirect methods, in which the presence of the exoplanets is derived by its effect on
the host star. Direct detection methods, in which the exoplanet is observed directly,
are still in the background, but the improvement of hardware and software techniques
is progressively closing the gap with the most successful detection methods.
The Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) is one of the most anticipated telescopes of the
next years. With its 39m diameter, it will be the biggest eye on the universe in the
optical/infrared range. It will be equipped with three state-of-the-art instruments:
HARMONI (the high angular optical and near-infrared spectrograph), MICADO
(the imaging camera for deep observations) working in tandem with MORFEO (the
multiconjugate adaptive optics system), and METIS (the mid-infrared imager and
spectrograph). One of the main science cases for the latter is direct detection of exoplanets,
and, for this purpose, it will be equipped with two of the most advanced
coronagraphs, the apodized phase plate (APP) and the vortex coronagraph (VC).
In this dissertation, we present the results of our work on the preparation of the
high-contrast imaging modes of METIS. The coronagraphs are optimized for the instrument
wavebands, and end-to-end performance simulations are performed for
several instrumental and environmental parameters. The expected observational
capabilities of the METIS instrument show the great leap in sensitivity to faint companions
in the thermal infrared regime that the instrument will enable.