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Register a new userTowards Laser-Guide-Stars for Multi-Aperture Interferometry: an application to the Hypertelescope
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Optical interferometry has been successful at achieving milliarcsecond resolution on bright stars. Imaging performance can improve greatly by increasing the number of baselines, which has motivated proposals to build large (~ 100 m) optical interferometers with tens to hundreds of telescopes. It is also desirable to adaptively correct atmospheric turbulence to obtain direct phased images of astrophysical sources. When a natural guide star is not available, we investigate the feasibility of using a modified laser-guide-star technique that is suitable for large diluted apertures. The method consists of using sub-sets of apertures to create an array of artificial stars in the sodium layer and collecting back-scattered light with the same sub-apertures. We present some numerical and laboratory simulations that quantify the requirements and sensitivity of the technique.
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We revisit one class of z-invariant WaveFront sensor where the LGS is fired aside of the telescope aperture. In this way there is a spatial dependence on the focal plane with respect to the height where the resonant scattering occurs. We revise the basic parameters involving the geometry and we propose various merit functions to define how much improvement can be attained by a z-invariant approach. We show that refractive approaches are not viable and we discuss several solutions involving reflective ones in what has been nicknamed ingot wavefront sensor discussing the degrees of freedom required to keep tracking and the basic recipe for the optical design.
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. Modern telescopes routinely use adaptive optics systems to compensate for the atmosphere and use laser-guide-stars to create artificial stars as bright references in the field of observation. Because multiple laser-guide-star adaptive optics are being implemented in all major observatories, we propose to use man-made stars not only for adaptive optics, but for phasing optics. We propose a method called the doublet-wavelength coherence technique (DWCT), exploiting the D lines of sodium in the mesosphere using laser guide-stars. The signal coherence properties are then used. The DWCT capture range exceeds current abilities by a factor of 100. It represents a change in paradigm by improving the phasing optics capture range from micrometric to millimetric. It thereby potentially eliminates the need of a man-made mechanical pre-phasing step. Extremely large telescopes require hundreds of segments, several of which need to be substituted on a daily basis to be recoated. The DWCT relaxes mechanical integration requirements and speeds up integration and re-integration process.
We numerically study a method to increase the photon return flux of continuous-wave laser guide stars using one-dimensional atomic cooling principles. The method relies on chirping the laser towards higher frequencies following the change in velocity of sodium atoms due to recoil, which raises atomic populations available for laser excitation within the Doppler distribution. The efficiency of this effect grows with the average number of atomic excitations between two atomic collisions in the mesosphere. We find the parameters for maximizing the return flux and evaluate the performance of chirping for operation at La Palma. According to our simulations, the optimal chirp rate lies between 0.8-1.0 MHz/$mu$s and an increase in the fluorescence of the sodium guide star up to 60% can be achieved with current 20 W-class guide star lasers.
Adaptive optics (AO) is a key technology for ground-based optical and infrared astronomy, providing high angular resolution and sensitivity. AO systems employing laser guide stars (LGS) can achieve high sky coverage, but their performance is limited by LGS return flux. We examine the potential of two new approaches that might produce high-intensity atmospheric laser beacons. Amplified spontaneous emission could potentially boost the intensity of beacons produced by conventional resonant excitation of atomic or molecular species in the upper atmosphere. This requires the production of a population inversion in an electronic transition that is optically-thick to stimulated emission. Potential excitation mechanisms include continuous wave pumping, pulsed excitation and plasma generation. Alternatively, a high-power femtosecond pulsed laser could produce a white-light supercontinuum high in the atmosphere. The broad-band emission from such a source could also facilitate the sensing of the tilt component of atmospheric turbulence.
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 translates the ground-based artificial guide star concept to space with a laser source aboard a second spacecraft, formation flying within the telescope field-of-view. We describe the motivating problem of mirror segment motion and develop wavefront sensing requirements as a function of guide star magnitude and segment motion power spectrum. Several sample cases with different values for transmitter power, pointing jitter, and wavelength are presented to illustrate the advantages and challenges of having a non-stellar-magnitude noise limited wavefront sensor for space telescopes. These notional designs allow increased control authority, potentially relaxing spacecraft stability requirements by two orders of magnitude, and increasing terrestrial exoplanet discovery space by allowing high-contrast observations of stars of arbitrary brightness.
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