MRI: Development of a Fast and Flexible Adaptive Optics Controller

该重大研究仪器奖将支持夏威夷10米凯克II望远镜自适应光学系统的重大升级。凯克天文台在1999年以自然导星系统开创了地面天文学的新时代，并在2007年最后一次升级为激光导星系统。自适应光学使地面望远镜能够克服地球大气引起的畸变，从而获得与类似尺寸的天基望远镜几乎相同的空间分辨率。升级后的Keck II AO系统将能够进行广泛的科学研究，并可以作为未来更大天文社区中先进AO仪器的跳板。凯克天文台通过开放访问协议和与合作机构的天文学家的广泛合作，向天文学界提供望远镜访问。它在培养下一代研究生和博士后研究人员方面发挥着重要作用，他们与夏威夷的其他天文台一起参加了阿卡迈劳动力计划，该计划为夏威夷本地人提供科学和技术实习机会。升级将包括现代波前传感器摄像头和更快的实时控制计算机。该建议建立在Keck AO系统的相当大的相关进展的基础上，这将对带宽改进产生更大的影响。这些包括钠波长光纤激光器的实现和从凯克望远镜二次反射镜后面发射该激光器（以减少视角延伸），以及目前实现的近红外金字塔波前传感器和aoo馈送单模光纤馈送到NIRSPEC（以支持系外行星探测和表征）。新的硬件将提供1等的灵敏度增益，并允许望远镜在其衍射极限附近工作。

This Major Research Instrumentation award will support a significant upgrade to Adaptive Optics [AO] system on the 10 meter Keck II telescope in Hawaii. Keck Observatory pioneered a new era of ground-based astronomy with a natural guide star system in 1999 and was last upgraded - to a laser guide star system - in 2007. Adaptive optics allows ground-based telescopes to overcome distortions induced by Earth's atmosphere and thereby achieve nearly the same spatial resolution as a space-based telescope of similar size. The upgraded Keck II AO system will enable a wide range of scientific studies and could serve as a springboard for future advanced AO instrumentation within the larger astronomical community. Keck Observatory provides telescope access to the astronomical community through an open-access agreement and through extensive collaborations with astronomers at their partner institutions. It plays a major role in training the next generation of graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, and they participate with other observatories in Hawaii in the Akamai workforce initiative, which provides scientific and technical internship opportunities to native Hawaiians.The upgrade will include modern wave front sensor camera and a faster real-time controller computer. This proposal builds on considerable related progress with the Keck AO systems, which will have an even larger impact with the bandwidth improvement. These include the implementation of a sodium- wavelength fiber laser and the launch of this laser from behind the Keck telescope secondary mirror (to reduce perspective elongation), and the current implementations of a near-infrared pyramid wavefront sensor and an AO-fed single mode fiber feed to NIRSPEC (to support exoplanet detection and characterization). The new hardware will provide a 1 magnitude sensitivity gain and allow the telescope to perform near its diffraction limit.