Laser Guided Adaptive Optics Instrument Development

如果地面望远镜配备了自适应光学系统，它可以产生几乎受衍射限制的图像。世界各地的天文学家团体--美国、欧洲和中国--正在建造和测试自适应光学系统。然而，如果这项技术要被从事光学波长工作的天文学家有效地使用，就必须创建人造导星来为自适应光学系统提供参考信号，因为足够亮的自然导星太少了，无法提供参考信号来驱动自适应反射镜。在这个奖项下，将研究一种通过染料激光信号的雷格利散射来产生人造导航星的方法。

A ground-based telescope can produce images that are nearly diffraction limited if the telescope is equipped with an adaptive optics system. Groups of astronomers around the world--in the U.S., in Europe and in China--are building and testing adaptive optics systems. However, if this technology is to be used productively by astronomers working at optical wavelengths, artificial guide stars must be created to provide the reference signal for the adaptive optics system because there are simply too few natural guide stars bright enough to provide the reference signal to drive the adaptive mirror. Under this award a method of producing artificial guide stars by Ragleigh scattering of a dye laser signal will be investigated.