Precision Adaptive Optics Imaging with Spatially Filtered Aperture Masking Interferometry

本计画将探讨孔径遮蔽干涉法应用于自适应光学观测之精确校正问题。非冗余光瞳掩模的使用减少了自适应光学领域中的信息提取问题，并且使得能够对由自适应光学系统提供的点扩散函数结构进行更高精度的校准，直到最高角分辨率。该项目将通过实施空间滤波来改进自适应光学非冗余掩蔽实验，这在以前已经证明在长基线干涉测量的精度方面有了显著的提高。提高对自适应光学性能的理解是非常重要和及时的，因为现在和未来的地基天文学的很大一部分取决于从自适应光学数据中提取结果。

This project addresses the problems of precise calibration of Adaptive Optics observations by use of an entirely novel application of aperture masking interferometry. The use of a non-redundant pupil mask reduces the problem of information extraction in the field of Adaptive Optics and enables a higher precision calibration of the point spread function structure delivered by the Adaptive Optics system up to the highest angular resolutions. The project will improve the Adaptive Optics Non-Redundant Masking experiment by implementing spatial filtering, which has previously demonstrated dramatic improvements in precision in long baseline interferometry. Improving the understanding of Adaptive Optics performance is very important and timely as a very large fraction of present and future ground based astronomy depends on extracting results from Adaptive Optics data.