Astrophysics enabled by Keck All Sky Precision Adaptive Optics

将开展四个高影响力科学项目，以推进美国天文2010年十年回顾中确定的关键科学领域，即表征和理解：暗物质和暗能量，超大质量黑洞的环境，早期星系和气体巨原行星的形成和演化，以及强引力体系中的广义相对论。所有数据都将公开发布，以确保美国社区获得宝贵的科学遗产。相关的教育计划支持双重目标，即在自适应光学的技术和科学方面培训和指导学生，并扩大妇女和代表性不足的群体在仪器仪表方面的参与。世界上最大的望远镜，直径10米的凯克一号望远镜。理论上，望远镜越大，可以看到的细节就越多。实际上，由于地球大气层中湍流的模糊效应，这些细节会丢失。自适应光学系统被设计为测量和校正这种模糊。测量是使用湍流上方的一个源进行的;一颗星星，或者为了让更多的物体被观察到，一颗用激光创造的人造星星。现有的凯克一号自适应光学设施将增加新的能力，包括多个激光引导星，以更好地测量大气湍流，使用新技术测量激光引导星没有测量到的湍流分量，以及自适应光学校正图像的新图像处理方法。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的学术价值和更广泛的影响评审标准。

Four high impact science projects will be carried out to advance key science areas identified in the U.S. Astro2010 Decadal Review, namely characterizing and understanding: dark matter and dark energy, the environments of supermassive black holes, the formation and evolution of early galaxies and gas-giant protoplanets, and General Relativity in a strong gravity regime. All data will be publicly released to ensure the U.S. community is provided with a valuable scientific legacy. The associated education program supports twin goals of training and mentoring students in the technology and science of adaptive optics, and broadening the participation of women and underrepresented groups in instrumentation.The required science performance will be achieved via the addition of new capabilities on one of the world?s largest telescope, the 10-m diameter Keck I telescope. In theory the larger the telescope the more detail can be seen. In practice these details are lost by the blurring effect of turbulence in the Earth's atmosphere. Adaptive optics systems are designed to measure and correct for this blurring. The measurements are made using a source above the turbulence; a star or, to allow more objects to be observed, an artificial star created with a laser. The new capabilities that will be added to the existing Keck I adaptive optics facility include multiple laser guide stars to better measure the atmospheric turbulence, the use of new techniques to measure the turbulence components not measured by the laser guide stars, and new image processing methods for the adaptive optics corrected images.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.