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Published June 2009 | public
Journal Article

Inverse problems in astronomical adaptive optics

Abstract

Adaptive optics (AO) is a technology used in ground-based astronomy to correct for the wavefront aberrations and loss of image quality caused by atmospheric turbulence. Provided some difficult technical problems can be overcome, AO will enable future astronomers to achieve nearly diffraction-limited performance with the extremely large telescopes that are currently under development, thereby greatly improving spatial resolution, spectral resolution and observing efficiency which will be achieved. The goal of this topical review is to present to the inverse problems community a representative sample of these problems. In this review, we first present a tutorial overview of the mathematical models and techniques used in current AO systems. We then examine in detail the following topics: laser guidestar adaptive optics, multi-conjugate and multi-object adaptive optics, high-contrast imaging and deformable mirror modeling and parameter identification.

Additional Information

Copyright © Institute of Physics and IOP Publishing Limited 2009. Received 15 January 2009, in final form 27 March 2009 Published 27 April 2009. Print publication: Issue 6 (June 2009). Ellerbroek gratefully acknowledges the support of the TMT partner institutions. They are the Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy (ACURA), the California Institute of Technology and the University of California. This work was supported as well by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation, the National Research Council of Canada, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the British Columbia Knowledge Development Fund, the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) and the US National Science Foundation. Vogel received support through a grant from the Optical Sciences Company and from the National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center for Adaptive Optics, managed by the University of California at Santa Cruz under cooperative agreement No. AST-9876783.

Additional details

Created:
August 20, 2023
Modified:
October 18, 2023