Development of the point-diffraction interferometer wavefront sensor for extreme adaptive optics
概要
Direct observation of exoplanets is crucial for solving the following two problems: clarifying the mechanisms of planet formation and searching for extraterrestrial biological activities. Potential targets have small angular separations (∼ 0.01 − 0.1 arcsec) from their host stars and small planet-to-star
contrasts (∼ 10−7 ). Thus, direct observation requires a high angular resolution and high contrast. Such observation with ground-based telescopes
is affected by the Earth’s atmospheric turbulence. This is because the turbulence causes wavefront aberrations, which scatter the host star’s light to
degrade the angular resolution and contrast. Therefore, wavefront correction
with adaptive optics (AO) is necessary. AO measures the incident wavefront
aberration with a wavefront sensor (WFS) and corrects the aberration with
a deformable mirror (DM), controlled by a real-time controller (RTC).
A highly accurate wavefront correction is required to obtain a 10−7 level final contrast. Such correction can be achieved with extreme adaptive
optics (ExAO), which has ∼ 40000 measurement/correction points in a 30-m
telescope aperture and runs at ∼ 5 kHz. ExAO requires a high-performance
WFS with the following properties:
• high efficiency: a small measurement error with a limited number of
photons,
• high-speed capabilities: low calculation cost and a small readout region
for wavefront sensing,
• a large dynamic range.
As for high efficiency, ExAO favors phase sensors, such as a fixed pyramid
WFS and a Zernike WFS. However, These current phase sensors have room
to improve high-speed capabilities and dynamic ranges.
This thesis describes the development of a new phase sensor named bPDI (birefringent point-diffraction interferometer). The b-PDI utilizes birefringent crystal as its key optical element. ...