Adaptive Optics for the CHARA Array

在山顶上。威尔逊俯瞰洛杉矶，坐在一个由六个1米口径望远镜组成的Y形阵列上，以光学/近红外干涉阵列的形式运行，基线从33米到331米，或角度分辨率优于1毫弧秒。这远远超过了最大的地面和轨道望远镜的分辨率，甚至比计划在未来十年使用的极大望远镜(ELT)的分辨率高出一个数量级。自从这座山建成以来。威尔逊阵列于2005年由佐治亚州立大学的高角度分辨率天文学中心(CHARA)完成，它已经产生了第一个直接探测到单星重力变暗的结果，第一个光晕群星的角直径，第一个单颗主序恒星的图像，以及第一个相互作用的双星的直接图像，以及其他进展。几乎每一次新的测量都表明，我们对恒星天文学的理解在某些方面是不完整或简单的。在建造以来的第一次查拉阵列升级中，佐治亚州立大学的T.ten Brummelaar博士和合作者仔细考虑了提高仪器灵敏度的最具成本效益的方法。他们打算重新设计倾斜/波前传感器，使用改进的探测器，消除19次反射，并通过增加一个简单的低阶自适应光学(AO)系统来增强波前控制。总而言之，这些改进应该会使许多目标的灵敏度提高约50倍，并在近红外方面有更大的改善。新的重要研究领域包括高度红化的目标，如年轻恒星周围的原行星盘，活动星系核，以及紧密的双星系统，包括那些包含中子星和恒星黑洞的系统。威尔逊干涉仪通过由国家光学天文台管理的开放分配程序提供给联盟成员，也提供给普通天文学团体。通过该阵列，查拉正在培训干涉测量领域的下一代科学和技术专家，该设施产生的科学成果被纳入本科生课程以及公共宣传活动。为升级山提供资金。威尔逊光学/近红外干涉仪由美国国家科学基金会天文科学部通过其先进技术和仪器计划提供。

On the summit of Mt. Wilson overlooking Los Angeles sits a Y-shaped array of six 1-m aperture telescopes operating as an optical/near-infrared interferometric array with baselines from 33 to 331 meters, or angular resolutions of better than 1 milliarcsecond. This far exceeds the resolution of the largest ground-based and orbiting telescopes, and is even an order of magnitude better than will be possible with the extremely large telescopes (ELTs) planned for the next decade. Since construction of the Mt. Wilson array was completed in 2005 by Georgia State University's Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy (CHARA), it has yielded the first direct detection of gravity darkening on a single star, the first angular diameter for a halo population star, the first image of a single, main-sequence star, and the first direct image of an interacting binary, among other advances. Almost every new measurement reveals that our understanding of stellar astronomy was in some aspect incomplete or simplistic.In the first CHARA array upgrade since construction, Georgia State's Dr. T. ten Brummelaar and collaborators have carefully considered the most cost-effective approaches to enhance the sensitivity of the instrument. They intend to redesign the tip-tilt/wavefront sensor to use an improved detector and eliminate 19 reflections, plus enhance the wavefront control through the addition of a simple low-order adaptive optics (AO) system. Together, these modifications should yield sensitivity increases of ~50x for many targets, with greater improvements in the near-IR. New important areas of study include highly reddened targets such as protoplanetary disks around young stars, active galactic nuclei, and close binary stellar systems, including those containing neutron stars and stellar black holes.Access to the Mt. Wilson interferometer is afforded to consortium members but also to the general astronomical community through an open allocation process managed by the National Optical Astronomy Observatories (NOAO). Through the array, CHARA is training the next generation of scientific and technical experts in the field of interferometry, and scientific results emerging from the facility are incorporated in undergraduate courses as well as public outreach activities. Funding for upgrading the Mt. Wilson optical/near-IR interferometer is being provided by NSF's Division of Astronomical Sciences through its Advanced Technologies and Instrumentation program.