Solar Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics Experiments on the 1.6 Meter Solar Telescope in Big Bear

该项目将开展实验，研究自适应光学先进策略的性能，这是一项尖端的现代技术，使用快速移动的可变形镜子来快速补偿由闪烁的大气产生的图像质量波动。自适应光学近年来蓬勃发展，提供了非常清晰的图像，但通常只在相当有限的天空部分。该项目研究的技术创新将利用多个可变形反射镜与湍流大气的不同层进行光学匹配，这种“多共轭”方法将在更大的天空区域产生高质量的校正图像。位于加州大熊的1.6米太阳望远镜上的自适应光学系统以单变形镜模式提供了高质量的太阳图像，在前所未有的空间尺度上提供了关于太阳表面复杂空间结构的详细信息。该系统具有三个可变形反射镜，每个反射镜都有357个驱动器，并且可变形反射镜可以放置在多个瞳孔位置。当考虑到一个更复杂的结构的自适应光学系统能够多共轭观测模式，一些技术问题尚未得到解决。这些问题包括一些基本问题，如可变形镜和波前传感器在光束列中的最佳位置。目前的项目将通过实验直接解决这些问题。许多科学目标，包括太阳耀斑的发生和演化，耀斑触发机制和磁重联事件，需要在多共轭观测模式所承诺的大视场上进行衍射有限的观测。除了为下一代仪器科学家提供培训外，这些潜在的寻路性质的研究将为许多天文台的自适应光学艺术的发展提供重要的广泛影响，包括太阳和夜间观测。该项目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资金。

This project will carry out experiments to study the performance of advanced strategies for adaptive optics, a cutting-edge modern technology that uses fast-moving deformable mirrors to rapidly compensate for the fluctuations in image quality produced by the shimmering atmosphere. Adaptive optics has flourished in recent years, delivering dramatically sharper images but usually only over a rather limited portion of the sky. The technical innovations to be investigated under this program will utilize multiple deformable mirrors optically matched to different layers of the turbulent atmosphere, and this "multi-conjugate" approach will result in high-quality corrected images over a substantially larger region of the sky.The adaptive optics system at the 1.6 meter solar telescope at Big Bear, CA, has delivered high-quality solar images in a single-deformable-mirror mode, providing detailed information about complex spatial structures on the surface of the sun at unprecedented spatial scales. The system features three deformable mirrors, each having 357 actuators, and multiple pupil positions in which the deformable mirrors may be placed. When considering the more complex architecture of an adaptive optics system capable of a multi-conjugate observing mode, a number of technical issues have yet to be addressed. These issues include such fundamental questions as the optimum placement in the beam train of deformable mirrors and wavefront sensors. The current project will address these issues directly, experimentally. A number of science goals, including the onset and evolution of solar flares, flare triggering mechanisms, and magnetic reconnection events, require diffraction-limited observations over the large field of view promised by the multi-conjugate observing mode.In addition to providing training for the next generation of instrumentation scientists, these investigations by their potentially path-finding nature will provide a vital form of broader impacts in advancing the art of adaptive optics at many observatories, for both solar and night-time observations.Funding for this project is being provided by NSF's Division of Astronomical Sciences through its Advanced Technologies and Instrumentation program.