Related papers: Building a GRAVITY+ Adaptive Optics Test Bench

The exoplanetary science through direct imaging and spectroscopy will largely expand with the forthcoming development of new instruments at the VLT (SPHERE), Gemini (GPI), Subaru (HiCIAO), and Palomar (Project 1640) observatories. All these…

The highest three-dimensional (3D) resolution possible in in-vivo retinal imaging is achieved by combining optical coherence tomography (OCT) and adaptive optics (AO). However, this combination brings important limitations, such as small…

Adaptive optics is a strategy to compensate for sample-induced aberrations in microscopy applications. Generally, it requires the presence of "guide stars" in the sample to serve as localized reference targets. We describe an implementation…

Adaptive optics (AO) have been used to correct wavefronts to achieve diffraction limited point spread functions in a broad range of optical applications, prominently ground-based astronomical telescopes operating in near infra-red. While…

Galaxy surveys provide one of the best ways to constrain the theory of gravity at cosmological scales. They can be used to constrain the two gravitational potentials encoding time, $\Psi$, and spatial, $\Phi$, distortions, which are exactly…

The performance of an adaptive optics (AO) system on a 100m diameter ground based telescope working in the visible range of the spectrum is computed using an analytical approach. The target Strehl ratio of 60% is achieved at 0.5um with a…

We propose a design of an adaptive optics (AO) system for the high-resolution fiber-fed echelle spectrograph installed at the Nasmyth focus of the 6-m BTA telescope at the Special Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) of the Russian Academy of…

The coating design for mirrors used in interferometric detectors of gravitational waves currently consists of stacks of two alternating dielectric materials with different refractive indexes. In order to explore the performance limits of…

The next generation of ground-based instruments aims to break through the knowledge we have on exoplanets by imaging circumstellar environments always closer to the stars. However, direct imaging requires an AO system and high-contrast…

Adaptive Optics projects at Subaru Telescope span a wide field of capabilities ranging from ground-layer adaptive optics (GLAO) providing partial correction over a 20 arcmin FOV to extreme adaptive optics (ExAO) for exoplanet imaging. We…

The Gemini Planet Imager instrument's adaptive optics (AO) subsystem was designed specifically to facilitate high-contrast imaging. It features several new technologies, including computationally efficient wavefront reconstruction with the…

Future large space telescopes will be equipped with adaptive optics (AO) to overcome wavefront aberrations and achieve high contrast for imaging faint astronomical objects, such as earth-like exoplanets and debris disks. In contrast to AO…

The Advanced LIGO gravitational wave detectors are nearing their design sensitivity and should begin taking meaningful astrophysical data in the fall of 2015. These resonant optical interferometers will have unprecedented sensitivity to the…

The precisions of existing gravitational calibrators for gravitational wave observatories are limited by their dependence on the relative position between the calibrators and the observatory's test masses. Here we present a novel geometry…

Lensless optical imaging eliminates the need for refractive optics, enabling compact and low-cost cameras with a large field-of-view, supporting point-of-care diagnostics and industrial monitoring. Practical deployments, however, remain…

The Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) design consists of seven circular 8.4-m diameter mirror segments that are separated by large > 30 cm gaps, creating the possibility of fluctuations in optical path differences due to flexure, segment…

HARMONI is a visible and near-infrared integral field spectrograph equipped with two complementary adaptive optics systems, fully integrated within the instrument. A Single Conjugate AO (SCAO) system offers high performance for a limited…

A new imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescope (CANGAROO-II) with a light-weight reflector has been constructed. Light, robust, and durable mirror facets of containing CFRP (Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic) laminates were developed for the…

We have created a new autonomous laser-guide-star adaptive-optics (AO) instrument on the 60-inch (1.5-m) telescope at Palomar Observatory called Robo-AO. The instrument enables diffraction-limited resolution observing in the visible and…

We propose a simple modification of space-based gravitational wave (GW) detector optical benches which would enable the measurement of vacuum birefringence of light induced by axion dark matterthrough its coupling to electromagnetism.…