- 标题
- 摘要
- 关键词
- 实验方案
- 产品
-
SPHERE/ZIMPOL high resolution polarimetric imager
摘要： Context. The SPHERE “planet finder” is an extreme adaptive optics (AO) instrument for high resolution and high contrast observations at the Very Large Telescope (VLT). We describe the Zurich Imaging Polarimeter (ZIMPOL), the visual focal plane subsystem of SPHERE, which pushes the limits of current AO systems to shorter wavelengths, higher spatial resolution, and much improved polarimetric performance. Aims. We present a detailed characterization of SPHERE/ZIMPOL which should be useful for an optimal planning of observations and for improving the data reduction and calibration. We aim to provide new benchmarks for the performance of high contrast instruments, in particular for polarimetric differential imaging. Methods. We have analyzed SPHERE/ZIMPOL point spread functions (PSFs) and measure the normalized peak surface brightness, the encircled energy, and the full width half maximum (FWHM) for different wavelengths, atmospheric conditions, star brightness, and instrument modes. Coronagraphic images are described and the peak flux attenuation and the off-axis flux transmission are determined. Simultaneous images of the coronagraphic focal plane and the pupil plane are analyzed and the suppression of the diffraction rings by the pupil stop is investigated. We compared the performance at small separation for different coronagraphs with tests for the binary α Hyi with a separation of 92 mas and a contrast of Δm ≈ 6m. For the polarimetric mode we made the instrument calibrations using zero polarization and high polarization standard stars and here we give a recipe for the absolute calibration of polarimetric data. The data show small (<1 mas) but disturbing differential polarimetric beam shifts, which can be explained as Goos-H?nchen shifts from the inclined mirrors, and we discuss how to correct this effect. The polarimetric sensitivity is investigated with non-coronagraphic and deep, coronagraphic observations of the dust scattering around the symbiotic Mira variable R Aqr. Results. SPHERE/ZIMPOL reaches routinely an angular resolution (FWHM) of 22?28 mas, and a normalized peak surface brightness of SB0 ? mstar ≈ ?6.5m arcsec?2 for the V-, R- and I-band. The AO performance is worse for mediocre (?1.0″) seeing conditions, faint stars mR ? 9m, or in the presence of the “low wind” effect (telescope seeing). The coronagraphs are effective in attenuating the PSF peak by factors of >100, and the suppression of the diffracted light improves the contrast performance by a factor of approximately two in the separation range 0.06″?0.20″. The polarimetric sensitivity is Δp < 0.01% and the polarization zero point can be calibrated to better than Δp ≈ 0.1%. The contrast limits for differential polarimetric imaging for the 400 s I-band data of R Aqr at a separation of ρ = 0.86″ are for the surface brightness contrast SBpol(ρ)?mstar ≈ 8m arcsec?2 and for the point source contrast mpol(ρ)?mstar ≈ 15m and much lower limits are achievable with deeper observations. Conclusions. SPHERE/ZIMPOL achieves imaging performances in the visual range with unprecedented characteristics, in particular very high spatial resolution and very high polarimetric contrast. This instrument opens up many new research opportunities for the detailed investigation of circumstellar dust, in scattered and therefore polarized light, for the investigation of faint companions, and for the mapping of circumstellar Hα emission.
关键词： circumstellar matter,instrumentation: adaptive optics,planetary systems,instrumentation: polarimeters,instrumentation: high angular resolution,instrumentation: detectors
更新于2025-09-23 15:23:52
-
Using the multi-object adaptive optics demonstrator RAVEN to observe metal-poor stars in and towards the Galactic Centre
摘要： The chemical abundances for five metal-poor stars in and towards the Galactic bulge have been determined from the H-band infrared spectroscopy taken with the RAVEN multi-object adaptive optics science demonstrator and the Infrared Camera and Spectrograph at the Subaru 8.2-m telescope. Three of these stars are in the Galactic bulge and have metallicities between ?2.1 < [Fe/H] < ?1.5, and high [α/Fe] ～ +0.3, typical of Galactic disc and bulge stars in this metallicity range; [Al/Fe] and [N/Fe] are also high, whereas [C/Fe] < +0.3. An examination of their orbits suggests that two of these stars may be confined to the Galactic bulge and one is a halo trespasser, though proper motion values used to calculate orbits are quite uncertain. An additional two stars in the globular cluster M22 show [Fe/H] values consistent to within 1σ, although one of these two stars has [Fe/H] = ?2.01 ± 0.09, which is on the low end for this cluster. The [α/Fe] and [Ni/Fe] values differ by 2σ, with the most metal-poor star showing significantly higher values for these elements. M22 is known to show element abundance variations, consistent with a multipopulation scenario though our results cannot discriminate this clearly given our abundance uncertainties. This is the first science demonstration of multi-object adaptive optics with high-resolution infrared spectroscopy, and we also discuss the feasibility of this technique for use in the upcoming era of 30-m class telescope facilities.
关键词： stars: abundances,Galaxy: centre,instrumentation: adaptive optics,globular clusters: individual: M22,techniques: spectroscopic
更新于2025-09-23 15:23:52
-
High resolution mesospheric sodium properties for adaptive optics applications
摘要： Context. The performance of laser guide star adaptive optics (AO) systems for large optical and infrared telescopes is affected by variability of the sodium layer, located at altitudes between 80 and 120 km in the upper mesosphere and lower thermosphere. The abundance and density structure of the atomic sodium found in this region is subject to local and global weather effects, planetary and gravity waves and magnetic storms, and is variable on time scales down to tens of milliseconds, a range relevant to AO. Aims. It is therefore important to characterize the structure and dynamical evolution of the sodium region on small, as well as large spatial and temporal scales. Parameters of particular importance for AO are the mean sodium altitude, sodium layer width and the temporal power spectrum of the centroid altitude. Methods. We have conducted a three-year campaign employing a high-resolution lidar system installed on the 6-m Large Zenith Telescope (LZT) located near Vancouver, Canada. During this period, 112 nights of useful data were obtained. Results. The vertical density profile of atomic sodium shows remarkable structure and variability. Smooth Gaussian-shaped profiles rarely occur. Multiple internal layers are frequently found. These layers often have sharp lower edges, with scale heights of just a few hundred meters, and tend to drift downwards at a typical rate of one kilometer every two to three hours. Individual layers can persist for many hours, but their density and internal structure can be highly variable. Sporadic layers are seen reaching peak densities several times the average, often in just a few minutes. Coherent vertical oscillations are often found, typically extending over tens of kilometers in altitude. Regions of turbulence are evident and Kelvin-Helmholtz instability are sometimes seen. The mean value of the centroid altitude is found to be 90.8 ± 0.1 km. The sodium layer width was determined by computing the altitude range that contains a specified fraction of the returned sodium light. We find a mean value of 13.1 ± 0.3 km for the range containing 95% of the photons, with a maximum width of 21 km. The temporal power spectral density of fluctuations of the centroid altitude is well described by a power law having an index that ranges from ?1.6 to ?2.3 with a mean value of ?1.87 ± 0.02. This is significantly steeper than the value of ?5/3 that would be expected if the dynamics were dominated by Kolmogorov turbulence, indicating that other factors such as gravity waves play an important role. The amplitude of the power spectrum has a mean value of 34+6?5 m2 Hz?1 at a frequency of 1 Hz, but ranges over two orders of magnitude. The annual means of the index and amplitude show a variation that is well beyond the calculated error range. Long-term global weather patterns may be responsible for this effect.
关键词： site testing,atmospheric effects,methods: observational,instrumentation: adaptive optics
更新于2025-09-23 15:23:52
-
Characterizing daytime wind profiles with the wide-field Shack–Hartmann wavefront sensor
摘要： Knowledge of the vertical spatio-temporal distribution of the wind speed and direction is essential for optimizing the performance of adaptive optics systems. An extension of SLODAR (slope detection and ranging) can be used for wind profiling by tracking the time-delayed cross-correlation peaks obtained from the slope of the Shack–Hartmann wavefront sensor. This wind-profiling method works well in situations where the cross-correlation peaks can be individualized, but in many cases the isolated cross-correlation peaks for each turbulent layer are difficult to find in the 2D cross-correlation maps, which can result in difficulties when estimating the wind profiles. To address this problem, we propose a method to measure the wind speed and direction of each layer. The method distinguishes isolated peaks more easily and is valid for multiple peaks, even for a weak response. Instead of tracking peaks in 2D cross-correlation maps, the proposed method traces a series of cross-correlation peaks in the curves of 1D slices through the maps from different directions, and finally determines the wind speed and direction according to the frozen-flow hypothesis. This method is verified with simulations, in which the input wind profiles are recovered accurately. Furthermore, this method is applied to 47 data sequences from the 1-m New Vacuum Solar Telescope at Fuxian Solar Observatory. The wind profiles are estimated from the ground up to 12 km, and the experimental results show that all layers move with a relatively low speed.
关键词： Sun: granulation,atmospheric effects,instrumentation: adaptive optics
更新于2025-09-23 15:23:52
-
Characterizing the Performance of the NIRC2 Vortex Coronagraph at W. M. Keck Observatory
摘要： The NIRC2 vortex coronagraph is an instrument on Keck II designed to directly image exoplanets and circumstellar disks at mid-infrared bands L′ (3.4–4.1 μm) and Ms (4.55–4.8 μm). We analyze imaging data and corresponding adaptive optics telemetry, observing conditions, and other metadata over a three-year time period to characterize the performance of the instrument and predict the detection limits of future observations. We systematically process images from 359 observations of 304 unique stars to subtract residual starlight (i.e., the coronagraphic point-spread function) of the target star using two methods: angular differential imaging (ADI) and reference star differential imaging (RDI). We ?nd that for the typical parallactic angle (PA) rotation of our data set (～10°), RDI provides gains over ADI for angular separations smaller than 0 25. Furthermore, we ?nd a power-law relation between the angular separation from the host star and the minimum PA rotation required for ADI to outperform RDI, with a power-law index of ?1.18 ± 0.08. Finally, we use random forest models to estimate ADI and RDI post-processed detection limits a priori. These models, which we provide publicly on a website, explain 70%–80% of the variance in ADI detection limits and 30%–50% of the variance in RDI detection limits. Averaged over a range of angular separations, our models predict both ADI and RDI contrast to within a factor of 2. These results illuminate important factors in high-contrast imaging observations with the NIRC2 vortex coronagraph, help improve observing strategies, and inform future upgrades to the hardware.
关键词： planets and satellites: detection,instrumentation: adaptive optics
更新于2025-09-23 15:22:29
-
Simulating the detection and classification of high-redshift supernovae with HARMONI on the ELT
摘要： We present detailed simulations of integral ?eld spectroscopic observations of a supernova in a host galaxy at z ～ 3, as observed by the HARMONI spectrograph on the Extremely Large Telescope, assisted by laser tomographic adaptive optics. The goal of the simulations, using the HSIM simulation tool, is to determine whether HARMONI can discern the supernova type from spectral features in the supernova spectrum. We ?nd that in a 3 h observation, covering the near-infrared H and K bands, at a spectral resolving power of ～3000, and using the 20 × 20 mas spaxel scale, we can classify Type Ia supernovae and their redshift robustly up to 80 d past maximum light (20 d in the supernova rest frame). We show that HARMONI will provide spectra at z ～ 3, which are of comparable (or better) quality to the best spectra we can currently obtain at z ～ 1, thus allowing studies of cosmic expansion rates to be pushed to substantially higher redshifts.
关键词： instrumentation: adaptive optics,instrumentation: spectrographs,galaxies: high-redshift,instrumentation: high angular resolution,supernovae: general
更新于2025-09-23 15:21:01
-
Efficient injection from large telescopes into single-mode fibres: Enabling the era of ultra-precision astronomy
摘要： Photonic technologies offer numerous advantages for astronomical instruments such as spectrographs and interferometers owing to their small footprints and diverse range of functionalities. Operating at the diffraction-limit, it is notoriously difficult to efficiently couple such devices directly with large telescopes. We demonstrate that with careful control of both the non-ideal pupil geometry of a telescope and residual wavefront errors, efficient coupling with single-mode devices can indeed be realised. A fibre injection was built within the Subaru Coronagraphic Extreme Adaptive Optics (SCExAO) instrument. Light was coupled into a single-mode fibre operating in the near-IR (J ? H bands) which was downstream of the extreme adaptive optics system and the pupil apodising optics. A coupling efficiency of 86% of the theoretical maximum limit was achieved at 1550 nm for a diffraction-limited beam in the laboratory, and was linearly correlated with Strehl ratio. The coupling efficiency was constant to within <30% in the range 1250–1600 nm. Preliminary on-sky data with a Strehl ratio of 60% in the H-band produced a coupling efficiency into a single-mode fibre of ～50%, consistent with expectations. The coupling was >40% for 84% of the time and >50% for 41% of the time. The laboratory results allow us to forecast that extreme adaptive optics levels of correction (Strehl ratio >90% in H-band) would allow coupling of >67% (of the order of coupling to multimode fibres currently) while standard levels of wavefront correction (Strehl ratio >20% in H-band) would allow coupling of >18%. For Strehl ratios <20%, few-port photonic lanterns become a superior choice but the signal-to-noise, and pixel availability must be considered. These results illustrate a clear path to efficient on-sky coupling into a single-mode fibre, which could be used to realise modal-noise-free radial velocity machines, very-long-baseline optical/near-IR interferometers and/or simply exploit photonic technologies in future instrument design.
关键词： instrumentation: interferometers,instrumentation: high angular resolution,instrumentation: spectrographs,instrumentation: adaptive optics
更新于2025-09-19 17:15:36
-
Efficient Spectroscopy of Exoplanets at Small Angular Separations with Vortex Fiber Nulling
摘要： Instrumentation designed to characterize potentially habitable planets may combine adaptive optics and high-resolution spectroscopy techniques to achieve the highest possible sensitivity to spectral signs of life. Detecting the weak signal from a planet containing biomarkers will require exquisite control of the optical wavefront to maximize the planet signal and significantly reduce unwanted starlight. We present an optical technique, known as vortex fiber nulling (VFN), that allows polychromatic light from faint planets at extremely small separations from their host stars (～λ/D) to be efficiently routed to a diffraction-limited spectrograph via a single-mode optical fiber, while light from the star is prevented from entering the spectrograph. VFN takes advantage of the spatial selectivity of a single-mode fiber to isolate the light from close-in companions in a small field of view around the star. We provide theoretical performance predictions of a conceptual design and show that VFN may be utilized to characterize planets detected by radial velocity (RV) instruments in the infrared without knowledge of the azimuthal orientation of their orbits. Using a spectral template-matching technique, we calculate an integration time of ～400, ～100, and ～30 hr for Ross 128 b with Keck, the Thirty Meter Telescope, and the Large Ultraviolet/Optical/Infrared Surveyor, respectively.
关键词： techniques: spectroscopic,instrumentation: adaptive optics,instrumentation: high angular resolution
更新于2025-09-10 09:29:36
-
Daytime optical turbulence and wind speed distributions at the Baikal Astrophysical Observatory
摘要： Atmospheric turbulence limits the angular resolution of ground-based optical telescopes. The daytime turbulence conditions for solar observations are stronger and more complicated than the turbulence observed at night. The Baikal Astrophysical Observatory is the site of the 1-m Large Solar Vacuum Telescope (LSVT) located near Lake Baikal (East Siberia, Russia), which is the largest freshwater lake in the world. The region hosts unique weather regimes and natural phenomena, including local winds and giant ice rings. Because the LSVT has ongoing and planned programmes in adaptive optics (AO), statistical knowledge of atmospheric turbulence and wind speed distributions is essential for designing and optimizing AO systems. We present the first seasonal study of the vertical distribution of wind speed and daytime optical turbulence conditions at the Baikal Astrophysical Observatory. Site measurements of the daytime Fried parameter were collected using the Shack–Hartmann wavefront sensor in the LSVT AO system. Reanalysis data from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) and the National Centers for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) were used to characterize the wind speed distribution. The results demonstrate seasonal variation in both solar seeing and wind speed profile. The strongest wind speed was detected in winter and in November, while the weakest wind speed occurred during summer. The strongest daytime turbulence conditions were observed in the winter. The best solar seeing β0 ≈ 1 arcsec was detected in the summer.
关键词： site testing,atmospheric effects,instrumentation: adaptive optics
更新于2025-09-10 09:29:36
-
A new calibration strategy for adaptive telescopes with pyramid WFS
摘要： Several telescopes include large deformable mirrors (DM) located directly inside the telescope. These adaptive telescopes trigger new constraints for the calibration of the adaptive optics (AO) systems as they usually offer no access to an artificial calibration source for the interaction matrix measurement. Moreover, the optical propagation between the DM and the wavefront sensor (WFS) may evolve during the operation, resulting in misregistrations that highly affect the AO performance and thus the scientific observation. They have to be measured and compensated, for instance by updating the calibration. A new strategy consists of estimating the misregistrations and injecting them into synthetic models to generate noise-free interaction matrices. This pseudo-synthetic approach is the baseline for the adaptive optics facility working with a Shack–Hartmann WFS and seems particularly suited for the future Extremely Large Telescope as the calibration will have to be regularly updated, for a large numbers of actuators. In this paper, the feasibility of a pseudo-synthetic calibration with pyramid WFS at the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) is investigated. A synthetic model of the LBT AO systems is developed, and the procedure to adjust the misregistrations parameters is introduced, extracting them from an experimental interaction matrix. We successfully tested an interaction matrix generated from the model on the real system in high-order AO mode. We recorded a slightly better performance with respect to the experimental one. This work demonstrates that a high-accuracy calibration can be obtained using the pseudo-synthetic approach with pyramid WFS.
关键词： telescopes,instrumentation: adaptive optics
更新于2025-09-09 09:28:46