Shearing interferometry for laser-guide-star atmospheric correction at large D/r 0

Shearing interferometry offers a possible method to scale wave-front sensors to the large number of subapertures that will be required for correction of the new generation of large 6–10-m-class telescopes at visible wavelengths. We discuss static shearing interferometers, which are prototype wave-front sensors for use with laser guide stars at large values of D/r0. The dc interferometers utilize low-noise detector array technology and can be implemented with a variety of shear lengths to accommodate different atmospheric conditions. We discuss the optical design and the noise sensitivity of two versions of dc interferometer. Atmospheric tests of the interferometers for correcting a 500-subaperture adaptive system are presented, including fringe data obtained with ultraviolet and visible laser stars and compensated ultraviolet images of Vega obtained at our test facility in San Diego.

[1]  J. Herrmann,et al.  Least-squares wave front errors of minimum norm , 1980 .

[2]  Jacques M. Beckers,et al.  Increasing the size of the isoplanatic patch with multiconjugate adaptive optics. , 1988 .

[3]  R. Hudgin.  Wave-front reconstruction for compensated imaging , 1977 .

[4]  W. O. Saxton,et al.  Measurement of the Transverse Electric Field Profile of Light by a Self-referencing Method with Direct Phase Determination References and Links " Measurement of Atmospheric Wavefront Distortion Using Scattered Light from a Laser Guide-star, " , 2022 .

[5]  D. Fried.  Anisoplanatism in adaptive optics , 1982 .

[6]  Horace W. Babcock,et al.  THE POSSIBILITY OF COMPENSATING ASTRONOMICAL SEEING , 1953 .

[7]  D. Fried.  Optical Resolution Through a Randomly Inhomogeneous Medium for Very Long and Very Short Exposures , 1966 .

[8]  Mark A. Ealey,et al.  Continuous facesheet low voltage deformable mirrors , 1990 .

[9]  Chester S. Gardner,et al.  Performance analysis of adaptive-optics systems using laser guide stars and slope sensors. , 1989 .

[10]  Antoine Labeyrie,et al.  Feasibility of adaptive telescope with laser probe , 1985 .

[11]  J. Wyant.  Use of an ac heterodyne lateral shear interferometer with real-time wavefront correction systems. , 1975, Applied optics.

[12]  C L Koliopoulos.  Radial grating lateral shear heterodyne interferometer. , 1980, Applied optics.

[13]  Chester S. Gardner,et al.  Experiments on laser guide stars at Mauna Kea Observatory for adaptive imaging in astronomy , 1987, Nature.

[14]  Glenn A. Tyler,et al.  Turbulence-induced adaptive-optics performance degradation: evaluation in the time domain , 1984 .

[15]  Daniel V. Murphy,et al.  Compensation of atmospheric optical distortion using a synthetic beacon , 1991, Nature.

[16]  W. Southwell.  Wave-front estimation from wave-front slope measurements , 1980 .

[17]  J. Hardy,et al.  Real-time atmospheric compensation , 1977 .

[18]  J. W. Hardy,et al.  Active optics: A new technology for the control of light , 1978, Proceedings of the IEEE.

[19]  R. Noll.  Zernike polynomials and atmospheric turbulence , 1976 .

[20]  Donald W. McCarthy,et al.  Direct 75 milliarcsecond images from the Multiple Mirror Telescope with adaptive optics , 1993 .

[21]  James Roger P. Angel,et al.  First Results of an On-Line Adaptive Optics System with Atmospheric Wavefront Sensing by an Artificial Neural Network , 1992 .

[22]  David L. Fried,et al.  Least-square fitting a wave-front distortion estimate to an array of phase-difference measurements , 1977 .

[23]  E. P. Wallner.  Optimal wave-front correction using slope measurements , 1983 .

[24]  B. Welsh,et al.  Design and performance analysis of adaptive optical telescopes using lasing guide stars , 1990, Proc. IEEE.

[25]  David L. Fried,et al.  Power spectra requirements for wave-front-compensative systems* , 1976 .

[26]  F. Roddier,et al.  A SIMPLE LOW-ORDER ADAPTIVE OPTICS SYSTEM FOR NEAR-INFRARED APPLICATIONS , 1991 .

[27]  Bruce A. Horwitz.  Multiplex techniques for real-time shearing interferometry , 1990 .