A flexible adaptive optics concept for general purpose high angular resolution science on the DAG 4m telescope

Abstract

Thanks to the availability of high actuator density deformable mirrors (ALPAO 468 DM), the high versatility of the pyramid wavefront sensor and above all, the venue of essentially no noise EMCCD detectors, it becomes possible to fully adapt the degree of correction of an adaptive optics system for a given guide star brightness and atmospheric condition. Indeed, when the conditions are very good, the high actuator density of the DM allows to reach a high Strehl by using all the modes, and when the conditions are less favorable, the spatial sampling, i. the number of modes, and the sensitivity of the detector allows to maximize the Strehl beyond what would be possible with a classical, frozen SH-WFS based system. Beside, oversampling the detector allows to relax the specification on the pupil images given by the pyramid on the detector, which in turn relaxes the pyramid prism manufacturing specifications. We are now designing an AO system for the DAG 4 m telescope that will allow, on the same system, ExAO as well as low order improved seeing observations. This article reports on the AO performance analysis, the final optical design and the design of the double prism achromatic pyramid.