Next Generation MCAO System For Large Aperture Solar Telescopes

大口径地面太阳望远镜解决了英国(和国际)太阳物理界在太阳能发电机、磁通量浮现、能量传输和磁驱动活动等方面的研究计划的核心科学问题，这些过程是空间天气的基础。它们将通过其前所未有的空间、光谱和时间分辨率以及高光谱偏振精度提供革命性的进步，从而能够对太阳大气中的基本过程进行前所未有的研究。多共轭自适应光学(MCAO)是一项技术，它将使这些望远镜能够在直径达一角分的视场中提供最高空间分辨率的太阳表面图像。然而，在白天强烈的湍流条件下，可见光波长操作对性能的要求比同等的夜间观测要严格得多，满足所需的空间和时间分辨率的挑战推动了当前相机技术和数据管理的边界。这项提案调查了一些关键问题，这些问题将支持丹尼尔·K·井上太阳望远镜(DKIST)和欧洲太阳望远镜(EST)现有的广域AO仪器开发计划，重点是提高科学生产率。除了对实现最高空间分辨率至关重要的AO方面，我们还解决了滤镜和相机设计的相关问题，这些问题也是满足最高空间和时间尺度所需的，以及管理相关数据量的相应挑战。该提案旨在针对目前EST和DKIST团队尚未深入调查的研究课题，英国拥有世界领先的研究团队。

Large aperture ground-based solar telescopes address key science questions that are at the heart of the UK (and international) Solar Physics community's research programmes in solar dynamos, magnetic flux emergence, energy transport and magnetically-driven activity; the process that underpin space weather. They will provide revolutionary advances through their unprecedented spatial, spectra and temporal resolution, coupled with high spectro-polarimetric accuracy, enabling unprecedented studies of fundamental processes in the solar atmosphere. Multiple Conjugate Adaptive Optics (MCAO) is a technology that will enable these telescopes to deliver the highest spatial resolution images of the surface of the Sun across fields of view up to an arcminute in diameter. However, the performance requirements imposed by the visible wavelength operation in strong daytime turbulence conditions are far more stringent than for equivalent night-time observing and the challenges of meeting the required spatial and temporal resolutions push the boundaries of current camera technologies and data management. This proposal investigates some of the key issues that will support the existing wide-field AO instrumentation development programs at the Daniel K Inouye solar telescope (DKIST) and the European Solar Telescope (EST) with a strong focus on enhancing scientific productivity. Alongside the AO aspects that are critical to achieving the highest spatial resolutions we also address the related questions of filter and camera design that are also required to meet the highest spatial and temporal scales, and the corresponding challenge of managing the associate data volumes. The proposal has been designed to target research topics that are currently not being investigated in depth by the EST and DKIST teams where the UK has world-leading research teams.