Optical design of the Wavefront sensing in the ULTIMATE-Subaru Ground Layer Adaptive Optics system

Abstract

ULTIMATE-Subaru (Ultra-wide Laser Tomographic Imager and MOS with AO Transcendent Exploration) is the next-generation development project of the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii, U.S.A. Ground Layer Adaptive Optics (GLAO) technology corrects atmospheric turbulence near the ground and improves the star image to realize wider fields of view (14 x 14 arcmin) than conventional adaptive optics can do. In the GLAO system, the laser launch system emits four lasers of up to 20 minutes of asterism, then these four lasers excite four artificial stars from 80km to 200km in the sky. The wavefront sensor (WFS) system observes them and corrects atmospheric turbulence. The WFS system also utilizes four natural stars outside the science field of view as well. This paper presents the preliminary optical design of the WFS system. Show more