HiCIAO Performance Report for SEEDS

SUMMARY HiCIAO is a new high-contrast instrument for the Subaru telescope. HiCIAO is used in conjunction with the new adaptive optics (AO) system (AO188/LGSAO188) at the Infrared Nasmyth platform. HiCIAO can combine coronagraphic techniques with conventional direct imaging, polarization differential imaging, or spectral differential imaging (DI/SDI/PDI) modes. The basic concept of simultaneous differential imaging is to split up the image into two or more images, and then use either different planes of polarization, or different spectral filter band-passes, or both, to produce a signal that distinguishes objects near a star (such as planets or disks) from residual speckles of the bright central star. A new observing technique called angular differential imaging (ADI) is also incorporated, and can be combined with the above DI/PDI/SDI modes. The instrument started development in 2004 and obtained its first light with AO188 in 2008 Dec. Eleven nights were allocated for commissioning, of which 8 were clear and usable for tests. The combination of HiCIAO and AO188 is to be used for the first Subaru Strategic Observing Program (SSOP) for the Subaru Strategic Explorations of Exoplanets and Disks Survey (SEEDS). This document concisely describes the current status of HiCIAO and its performance obtained both in the laboratory and at the telescope during its commission runs for the performance verification review. Coronagraph masks (0.3 " , 0.6 " diameter) are regularly used during the commissioning with a spider-pattern suppressing Lyot stop. We have measured 5σ 1hr on-sky contrasts of ~10