Advanced Wavefront Sensing Techniques for Next Generation Adaptive Optics Systems

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Canada has committed funding and is a major partner of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). When completed, TMT will usher in a new, exciting era of optical and near-infrared astronomy. To make the most of TMT, we will need to incorporate Adaptive Optics (AO) systems to compensate for turbulence in the atmosphere. AO on TMT should allow us to take high resolution images and integral field spectroscopy of everything from asteroids in our solar system, to planets around other stars, to stars orbiting around the black hole in the center of our Galaxy, to stars moving in the gravitational potential of other galaxies, to galaxies billions of light years away as they exist in the era of peak star formation, and to “first-light” objects from the early Universe.Our group at NRC is very active in designing NFIRAOS, the facility AO system for TMT and one of the flagship Canadian contributions. I serve as the NFIRAOS Project Scientist and NFIRAOS Project Manager. By serving in these leadership roles, I can provide students and postdocs a unique opportunity to contribute to a cutting edge AO instrument. In particular, by studying new wavefront sensing techniques, students supported by this NSERC Discovery Grant are well-placed for making significant contributions to AO science and will be highly desirable to employers as they seek future careers in research, academia or industry.In addition to my work on NFIRAOS, I supervise a lab at NRC Herzberg that contains two AO test benches. One of these benches is dedicated to exploring advanced wavefront sensors. It has ports that allow us to compare up to five different wavefronts sensors at once. We can compare the optical sensitivity, data processing algorithms, calibration methods and control laws for different flavours of wavefront sensors including Shack-Hartmann, pyramid, focal plane and non-linear curvature wavefront sensors. The second bench is a scaled down version of NFIRAOS which will allow students to study the calibration of a complex system including eight wavefront sensors and learn how the measurements from these wavefront sensors can be blended to provide the optimal correction. The long term benefits of studying wavefront sensors is clear: Research done now can have direct impact on the performance of NFIRAOS in eight years. It also keeps our group working with the most cutting edge optical devices and algorithms available. By keeping that edge, Canada will be well-placed for being a major partner in the next generation of AO systems for TMT and other Canadian observatories.