Pupil-transformation multiconjugate adaptive optics for solar high-resolution imaging

Abstract

We propose a multiconjugate adaptive optics (MCAO) system called pupil-transformation MCAO (PT-MCAO) for solar high-angular resolution imaging over a large field of view. The PT-MCAO, consisting of two deformable mirrors (DMs), uses a Shack–Hartmann wavefront sensor located on the telescope pupil to measure the wavefront slopes from several guide stars. The average slopes are used to control the first DM conjugated on the telescope aperture by a solar ground-layer adaptive optics (AO) approach while the remaining slopes are used to control the second DM conjugated on a high altitude by a conventional solar AO via a geometric PT. The PT-MCAO uses a similar hardware configuration as the conventional star-oriented MCAO. However, a distinctive feature of our PT-MCAO is that it avoids the construction of tomography wavefront, which is a time-consuming and complex process for the solar real-time atmospheric turbulence correction. For the PT-MCAO, current widely used and fully understood conventional solar AO closed-loop control algorithms can be directly used to control the two DMs, which greatly reduces the real-time calculation power requirement and makes the PT-MCAO easy to implement. In this publication, we discuss the PT-MCAO methodology, its unique features, and compare its performance with that of the conventional solar star-oriented MCAO systems, which demonstrate that the PT-MCAO can be immediately used for solar high-resolution imaging.