Related papers: Advanced wavefront sensing and control demonstrati…
Over the past decade, the high-contrast observation of disks and gas giant planets around nearby stars has been made possible on ground-based instruments using extreme adaptive optics (XAO). While these facilities produce images with a…
The behavior of an adaptive optics (AO) system for ground-based high contrast imaging (HCI) dictates the achievable contrast of the instrument. In conditions where the coherence time of the atmosphere is short compared to the speed of the…
Since the year 2000, adaptive optics (AO) has seen the emergence of a variety of new concepts addressing particular science needs; multiconjugate adaptive optics (MCAO) is one of them. By correcting the atmospheric turbulence in 3D using…
The behavior of an adaptive optics (AO) system for ground-based high contrast imaging (HCI) dictates the achievable contrast of the instrument. In conditions where the coherence time of the atmosphere is short compared to the speed of the…
Direct imaging of exoplanets allows us to measure positions and chemical signatures of exoplanets. Given the limited resources for space observations where the atmosphere is absent, we want to make these measurements from the ground.…
Imaging faint objects, such as exoplanets or disks, around nearby stars is extremely challenging because host star images are dominated by the telescope diffraction pattern. Using a coronagraph is an efficient solution for removing…
"MagAO" is the adaptive optics instrument at the Magellan Clay telescope at Las Campanas Observatory, Chile. MagAO has a 585-actuator adaptive secondary mirror and 1000-Hz pyramid wavefront sensor, operating on natural guide stars from…
GMagAO-X is a visible to NIR extreme adaptive optics (ExAO) system that will be used at first light for the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT). GMagAO-X is designed to deliver diffraction-limited performance at visible and NIR wavelengths (6 to…
Atmospheric wavefront prediction based on previous wavefront sensor measurements can greatly enhance the performance of adaptive optics systems. We propose an optimal linear approach based on the Empirical Orthogonal Functions (EOF)…
Astronomical adaptive optics (AO) is a critical approach to enable ground-based diffraction-limited imaging and high contrast science, with the potential to enable habitable exoplanet imaging on future extremely large telescopes. However,…
Multi-conjugated adaptive optics (MCAO) yield nearly diffraction-limited images at 2$\mu$m wavelengths. Currently, GeMS/GSAOI at Gemini South is the only MCAO facility instrument at an 8m telescope. Using real data and for the first time,…
Recent advances in adaptive optics (AO) have led to the implementation of wide field-of-view AO systems. A number of wide-field AO systems are also planned for the forthcoming Extremely Large Telescopes. Such systems have multiple wavefront…
Traditional wavefront control in high-energy, high-intensity laser systems usually lacks real-time capability, failing to address dynamic aberrations. This limits experimental accuracy due to shot-to-shot fluctuations and necessitates long…
Current and future high contrast imaging instruments aim to detect exoplanets at closer orbital separations, lower masses, and/or older ages than their predecessors, with the eventual goal of directly detecting terrestrial-mass…
The discovery of the exoplanet Proxima b highlights the potential for the coming generation of giant segmented mirror telescopes (GSMTs) to characterize terrestrial --- potentially habitable --- planets orbiting nearby stars with direct…
Extra-solar planets have not been imaged directly with existing ground or space telescopes because they are too faint to be seen against the halo of the nearby bright star. Most techniques being explored to suppress the halo are achromatic,…
For high-contrast imaging (HCI) systems, such as VLT/SPHERE, the performance of the system at small angular separations is contaminated by the wind-driven halo in the science image. This halo is a result of the servo-lag error in the…
This article describes the implementation of a focal plane based wavefront control loop on the high-contrast imaging instrument SCExAO (Subaru Coronagraphic Extreme Adaptive Optics). The sensor relies on the Fourier analysis of conventional…
Focal plane wavefront sensing and control is a critical approach to reducing non-common path errors between the a conventional astronomical adaptive optics (AO) wavefront sensor (WFS) detector and science camera. However, in addition to…
In astronomy and microscopy, distortions in the wavefront affect the dynamic range of a high contrast imaging system. These aberrations are either imposed by a turbulent medium such as the atmosphere, by static or thermal aberrations in the…