Related papers: Towards Laser-Guide-Stars for Multi-Aperture Inter…
Laser guide stars with adaptive optics allow astronomical image correction in the absence of a natural guide star. Single guide star systems with a star created in the earth's sodium layer can be used to correct the wavefront in the near…
Near-diffraction limited imaging and spectroscopy in the visible on large (8-10 meter) class telescopes has proved to be beyond the capabilities of current adaptive optics technologies, even when using laser guide stars. The need for high…
Intensity interferometry permits very long optical baselines and the observation of sub-milliarcsecond structures. Using planned kilometric arrays of air Cherenkov telescopes at short wavelengths, intensity interferometry may increase the…
Adaptive optics (AO) systems allow a telescope to reach its diffraction limit at near infrared wavelengths. But to achieve this, a bright natural guide star (NGS) is needed for the wavefront sensing, severely limiting the fraction of the…
Segmented primary mirrors are indispensable to master the steady increase in spatial resolution. Phasing optics systems must reduce segment misalignments to guarantee the high optical quality required for astronomical science programs.…
Laser guide stars created by Rayleigh scattering provide a reasonable means to monitor atmospheric wavefront distortions for real-time correction by adaptive optics systems. Because of the $\lambda^{-4}$ wavelength dependence of Rayleigh…
Both lucky imaging techniques and adaptive optics require natural guide stars, limiting sky coverage, even when laser guide stars are used. Lucky imaging techniques become less successful on larger telescopes unless adaptive optics is used,…
Using the latest generation of adaptive optics imaging systems together with laser guide stars on 8m-class telescopes, we are finally revealing the previously-hidden population of supernovae in starburst galaxies. Finding these supernovae…
(Sub-)mm interferometry is the most favorable technique to investigate the earliest stages of massive star formation. I will outline general applications in that field and discuss results of different sub-topics (hot core chemistry and…
Large telescope's adaptive optics (AO) system requires one or several bright artificial laser guide stars to improve its sky coverage. The recent advent of high power sodium laser is perfect for such application. However, besides the output…
Precision wavefront control on future segmented-aperture space telescopes presents significant challenges, particularly in the context of high-contrast exoplanet direct imaging. We present a new wavefront control architecture that…
Optical stellar interferometers have demonstrated milli-arcsecond resolution with few apertures spaced hundreds of meters apart. To obtain rich direct images, many apertures will be needed, for a better sampling of the incoming wavefront.…
A long-held astronomical vision is to realize diffraction-limited optical aperture synthesis over kilometer baselines. This will enable imaging of stellar surfaces and their environments, show their evolution over time, and reveal…
This chapter discusses the use and possibilities of optical and infrared interferometry to study star formation. The chapter starts with a brief overview of the star formation process and highlights the open questions from an observational…
We have constructed an analytical model to simulate the behavior of an adaptive optics system coupled with a sodium laser guide star. The code is applied to a 3.6-m and 8m class telescopes. The results are given in terms of Strehl ratio and…
Using kilometric arrays of air Cherenkov telescopes, intensity interferometry may increase the spatial resolution in optical astronomy by an order of magnitude, enabling images of rapidly rotating stars with structures in their…
We present an analytical derivation of the on-axis performance of Adaptive Optics systems using a given number of guide stars of arbitrary altitude, distributed at arbitrary angular positions in the sky. The expressions of the residual…
The Giant Magellan Telescope will use laser tomography adaptive optics to correct for atmospheric turbulence using artificial guide stars created in the sodium layer of the atmosphere (altitude ~95km). The sodium layer has appreciable…
A long-held vision has been to realize diffraction-limited optical aperture synthesis over kilometer baselines. This will enable imaging of stellar surfaces and their environments, and reveal interacting gas flows in binary systems. An…
Most current astronomical adaptive optics (AO) systems rely on the availability of a bright star to measure the distortion of the incoming wavefront. Replacing the guide star with an artificial laser beacon alleviates this dependency on…