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The InfraRed Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) is a first-light instrument for the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) that will be used to sample the corrected adaptive optics field by the Narrow-Field Infrared Adaptive Optics System (NFIRAOS) with a near-infrared (0.8 - 2.4 µm) imaging camera and integral field spectrograph. To better understand IRIS science specifications we use the IRIS data simulator to characterize relative photometric precision and accuracy across the IRIS imaging camera 34”x34” field of view. Because the Point Spread Function (PSF) varies due to the effects of anisoplanatism, we use the Anisoplanatic and Instrumental Reconstruction of Off-axis PSFs for AO (AIROPA) software package to conduct photometric measurements on simulated frames using PSF-fitting as the PSF varies in single-source, binary, and crowded field use cases. We report photometric performance of the imaging camera as a function of the instrumental noise properties including dark current and read noise. Using the same methods, we conduct comparisons of photometric performance with reconstructed PSFs, in order to test the veracity of the current PSF-Reconstruction algorithms for IRIS/TMT., Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy VIII, December 14-18, 2020, Online Only, United States, Series: Proceedings of SPIE

IRIS is a diffraction limited instrument designed for first light of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). It combines a nearinfrared integral field spectrograph (lenslet array and mirror slicer) and a wide-field imager with platescales as small as 4 mas. The project is nearing the end of its final design phase and will soon be ready for fabrication. Our team has created a wide variety of prototypes and design solutions for this advanced instrument. While many challenges like atmospheric dispersion correction and saturation are particularly acute due to the telescope diameter, many others arise from the large format detector arrays and wide range of science goals. We’ll present the overall design, results from our prototyping activities and discuss the astrophysical opportunities., Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy VIII, December 14-18, 2020, Online Only, United States, Series: Proceedings of SPIE

Stellar images have been obtained under natural seeing at visible and near-infrared wavelengths simultaneously through the Subaru Telescope at Mauna Kea. The image quality is evaluated by the full-width at the half-maximum (FWHM) of the stellar images. The observed ratio of FWHM in the V-band to the K-band is 1.54 ± 0.17 on average. The ratio shows tendency to decrease toward bad seeing as expected from the outer scale influence, though the number of the samples is still limited. The ratio is important for simulations to evaluate the performance of a ground-layer adaptive optics system at near-infrared wavelengths based on optical seeing statistics. The observed optical seeing is also compared with outside seeing to estimate the dome seeing of the Subaru Telescope.

The SR24 multi-star system hosts both circumprimary and circumsecondary disks, which are strongly misaligned from each other. The circumsecondary disk is circumbinary in nature. Interestingly, both disks are interacting, and they possibly rotate in opposite directions. To investigate the nature of this unique twin disk system, we present 0.''1 resolution near-infrared polarized intensity images of the circumstellar structures around SR24, obtained with HiCIAO mounted on the Subaru 8.2 m telescope. Both the circumprimary disk and the circumsecondary disk are resolved and have elongated features. While the position angle of the major axis and radius of the NIR polarization disk around SR24S are 55$^{\circ}$ and 137 au, respectively, those around SR24N are 110$^{\circ}$ and 34 au, respectively. With regard to overall morphology, the circumprimary disk around SR24S shows strong asymmetry, whereas the circumsecondary disk around SR24N shows relatively strong symmetry. Our NIR observations confirm the previous claim that the circumprimary and circumsecondary disks are misaligned from each other. Both the circumprimary and circumsecondary disks show similar structures in $^{12}$CO observations in terms of its size and elongation direction. This consistency is because both NIR and $^{12}$CO are tracing surface layers of the flared disks. As the radius of the polarization disk around SR24N is roughly consistent with the size of the outer Roche lobe, it is natural to interpret the polarization disk around SR24N as a circumbinary disk surrounding the SR24Nb-Nc system., Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in AJ

The current status of IRIS imager at NAOJ is reported. IRIS (Infrared Imaging Spectrograph) is a first light instrument of TMT (Thirty Meter Telescope). IRIS has just passed the preliminary design review and moved forward to the final design phase. In this paper, optical and mechanical design of IRIS imager and prototyping activities conducted during the preliminary design phase are summarized.

The Infrared Doppler (IRD) instrument is a fiber-fed high-resolution NIR spectrometer for the Subaru telescope covering the Y,J,H-bands simultaneously with a maximum spectral resolution of 70,000. The main purpose of IRD is a search for Earth-mass planets around nearby M-dwarfs by precise radial velocity measurements, as well as a spectroscopic characterization of exoplanet atmospheres. We report the current status of the instrument, which is undergoing commissioning at the Subaru Telescope, and the first light observation successfully done in August 2017. The general description of the instrument will be given including spectrometer optics, fiber injection system, cryogenic system, scrambler, and laser frequency comb. A large strategic survey mainly focused on late-type M-dwarfs is planned to start from 2019.

We present on-sky results from the wide field ground-layer adaptive optics (GLAO) system on the University of Hawaii 2.2-meter telescope on Maunakea. We demonstrate improvements in image quality at visible wavelengths under a variety of seeing conditions. We discuss the gains for a variety of figures of merit including the full-width at half-maximum, the equivalent noise area, and the encircled energy diameter. These gains and figures of merit are discussed in the context of our GLAO science cases. In addition, we present the system image quality error budget, measurements of the dominant error terms, and their impact on the delivered focal plane images.

This paper presents the overview of on-going and future adaptive optics (AO) activities at the Subaru telescope on the top of Maunakea in Hawaii. Currently, two AO systems are running at the Subaru telescope: AO188, a facility single-conjugate AO system with a bimorph deformable mirror and a curvature wavefront sensor with 188 elements, and SCExAO, an additional extreme AO system operating behind AO188 and specialized for exoplanet sciences. We recently started AO188 upgrade project to improve its performance for the next 5-10 years, which will also help improving SCExAO performance. These upgrades are in line with a development for the ULTIMATE-Subaru ground layer AO system.

The InfraRed Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) is the first-light client instrument for the Narrow Field Infrared Adaptive Optics System (NFIRAOS) on the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). IRIS includes three natural guide star (NGS) On-Instrument Wavefront Sensors (OIWFS) to measure tip/tilt and focus errors in the instrument focal plane. NFIRAOS also has an internal natural guide star wavefront sensor, and IRIS and NFIRAOS must precisely coordinate the motions of their wavefront sensor positioners to track the locations of NGSs while the telescope is dithering (offsetting the telescope to cover more area), to avoid a costly re-acquisition time penalty. First, we present an overview of the sequencing strategy for all of the involved subsystems. We then predict the motion of the telescope during dithers based on finite-element models provided by TMT, and finally analyze latency and jitter issues affecting the propagation of position demands from the telescope control system to individual motor controllers., 21 pages, 19 figures, SPIE (2018) 10707-49

A thermal-infrared polarimetric capability of the Infrared Camera and Spectrograph (IRCS) for the Subaru Telescope is described. A new half-wave retarder for the thermal-infrared band in 2–5 µm is introduced into the Waveplate Unit of the Nasmyth platform on the infrared side of the telescope to realize imaging- and low resolution spectro-polarimetry in that wavelength region. Through day-time calibrations using a wire-grid polarizer, the peak efficiency of the polarization is found to be 90-98% consistently in both imaging- and spectro- polarimetry in the thermal-infrared bands. In 2016 May and 2017 June, two engineering observing runs have been carried out to verify the on-sky performance.

The InfraRed Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) is a first-light instrument for the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) that will be used to sample the corrected adaptive optics field by NFIRAOS with a near-infrared (0.8 - 2.4 $\mu$m) imaging camera and Integral Field Spectrograph (IFS). In order to understand the science case specifications of the IRIS instrument, we use the IRIS data simulator to characterize photometric precision and accuracy of the IRIS imager. We present the results of investigation into the effects of potential ghosting in the IRIS optical design. Each source in the IRIS imager field of view results in ghost images on the detector from IRIS's wedge filters, entrance window, and Atmospheric Dispersion Corrector (ADC) prism. We incorporated each of these ghosts into the IRIS simulator by simulating an appropriate magnitude point source at a specified pixel distance, and for the case of the extended ghosts redistributing flux evenly over the area specified by IRIS's optical design. We simulate the ghosting impact on the photometric capabilities, and found that ghosts generally contribute negligible effects on the flux counts for point sources except for extreme cases where ghosts coalign with a star of $\Delta$m$>$2 fainter than the ghost source. Lastly, we explore the photometric precision and accuracy for single sources and crowded field photometry on the IRIS imager., Comment: SPIE 2018, 14 pages, 14 figures, 4 tables, Proceedings of SPIE 10702-373, Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy VII, 10702A7 (16 July 2018)

We investigate the use of ultra-narrow band interference filters to enable daytime use of sodium laser guide star adaptive optics systems. Filter performance is explored using theoretical and vendor supplied filter transmission profiles, a modeled daylight sky background, broadband measurements of the daytime sky brightness on Maunakea, and an assumed photon return from the sodium laser guide star and read noise for the wavefront sensor detector. The critical parameters are the bandpass of the filter, the out-of-band rejection, and the peak throughput at the wavelength of the laser guide star light. Importantly, a systematic trade between these parameters leads to potentially simple solutions enabling daytime observations. Finally, we simulated the Mid-Infrared Adaptive Optics (MIRAO) system planned for the Thirty Meter Telescope with an end-to-end simulation, folding in daytime sky counts. We find that MIRAO with five sodium laser guide stars, commercial off-the-shelf filters to suppress the sky background in the laser guide star wavefront sensors, and a near-infrared natural guide star ($K \le 13$) tip/tilt/focus wavefront sensor can attain daytime Strehl ratio values comparable to those at night., Comment: 24 pages, 5 figures, submitted for publication in SPIE JATIS

The Subaru Coronagraphic Extreme Adaptive Optics (SCExAO) instrument is a multipurpose high-contrast imaging platform designed for the discovery and detailed characterization of exoplanetary systems and serves as a testbed for high-contrast imaging technologies for ELTs. It is a multi-band instrument which makes use of light from 600 to 2500nm allowing for coronagraphic direct exoplanet imaging of the inner 3 lambda/D from the stellar host. Wavefront sensing and control are key to the operation of SCExAO. A partial correction of low-order modes is provided by Subaru's facility adaptive optics system with the final correction, including high-order modes, implemented downstream by a combination of a visible pyramid wavefront sensor and a 2000-element deformable mirror. The well corrected NIR (y-K bands) wavefronts can then be injected into any of the available coronagraphs, including but not limited to the phase induced amplitude apodization and the vector vortex coronagraphs, both of which offer an inner working angle as low as 1 lambda/D. Non-common path, low-order aberrations are sensed with a coronagraphic low-order wavefront sensor in the infrared (IR). Low noise, high frame rate, NIR detectors allow for active speckle nulling and coherent differential imaging, while the HAWAII 2RG detector in the HiCIAO imager and/or the CHARIS integral field spectrograph (from mid 2016) can take deeper exposures and/or perform angular, spectral and polarimetric differential imaging. Science in the visible is provided by two interferometric modules: VAMPIRES and FIRST, which enable sub-diffraction limited imaging in the visible region with polarimetric and spectroscopic capabilities respectively. We describe the instrument in detail and present preliminary results both on-sky and in the laboratory., Comment: Accepted for publication, 20 pages, 10 figures

Adaptive optics is useful not only for the suppression of the blur of image, but also for the reduction of the aberration on the transmitted light. Recent years, methods for optical manipulation of biological tissue under the microscope is becoming available, whereas the live tissue often causes the considerable amount of optical aberration that prevents the clear convergence of the laser beam onto the target cell. This research shows the basic experiments to improve the convergence of the laser beam focused on the tissue in microscope by correcting the optical aberration using adaptive optics.

Live-cell imaging using fluorescent molecules is now essential for biological researches. However, images of living cells are accompanied with blur, which becomes stronger according to the depth inside the cells and tissues. This image blur is caused by the disturbance on light that goes through optically inhomogeneous living cells and tissues. Here, we show adaptive optics (AO) imaging of living plant cells. AO has been developed in astronomy to correct the disturbance on light caused by atmospheric turbulence. We developed AO microscope effective for the observation of living plant cells with strong disturbance by chloroplasts, and successfully obtained clear images inside plant cells.

In astronomy, adaptive optics (AO) can be used to cancel aberrations caused by atmospheric turbulence and to perform diffraction-limited observation of astronomical objects from the ground. AO can also be applied to microscopy, to cancel aberrations caused by cellular structures and to perform high-resolution live imaging. As a step toward the application of AO to microscopy, here we analyzed the optical properties of plant cells. We used leaves of the moss Physcomitrella patens, which have a single layer of cells and are thus suitable for optical analysis. Observation of the cells with bright field and phase contrast microscopy, and image degradation analysis using fluorescent beads demonstrated that chloroplasts provide the main source of optical degradations. Unexpectedly, the cell wall, which was thought to be a major obstacle, has only a minor effect. Such information provides the basis for the application of AO to microscopy for the observation of plant cells.

The Kyoto Tridimensional Spectrograph II (Kyoto 3DII) is an optical integral field spectrograph mounted on the Subaru telescope as a PI-type instrument. Used with AO188, Kyoto 3DII provides us unique opportunities of optical Integral Field Spectroscopy (IFS) with adaptive optics (AO). While AO works better in redder wavelength regions, quantum efficiency of the previous CCD was low there with optimization for a wider wavelength coverage. To optimize Kyoto 3DII to AO observations, we have newly installed the red-sensitive Hamamatsu fully depleted CCD, which enhances the system efficiency by a factor of ~2 in the red wavelength range. Fringes are dramatically reduced, and the readout noise drops to 3:2-3:4e- about two times smaller than previous, due to refrigerator and readout system. With these improvements, we carried out engineering and scientific observations in September 2015, February and March 2016. We measured the system efficiency using a standard star, and confirmed the successful improvement of the system efficiency. We observed galactic nuclei of nearby galaxies in the Natural Guide Star (NGS) and the Laser Guide Star (LGS) modes. We found the spatial resolution of ~0.1′′ FWHM using a 9.5-magnitude NGS, and ~0.2 - 0:4′′ in LGS mode. Together with the AO resolution, improved efficiency opens a new window for Kyoto 3DII to carry out high resolution optical IFS targeting faint objects such as high-redshift galaxies as well as faint lines such as [OI] λ6300° A and absorption lines of nearby objects.

We present the current optical design for the IRIS Atmospheric Dispersion Corrector (ADC). The ADC is designed for residual dispersions less than ~1 mas across a given passband at elevations of 25 degrees. Since the last report, the area of the IRIS Imager has increased by a factor of four, and the pupil size has increased from 75 to 90mm, both of which contribute to challenges with the design. Several considerations have led to the current design: residual dispersion, amount of introduced distortion, glass transmission, glass availability, and pupil displacement. In particular it was found that there are significant distortions that appear (two different components) that can lead to image blur over long exposures. Also, pupil displacement increases the wavefront error at the imager focus. We discuss these considerations, discuss the compromises, and present the final design choice and expected performance., 9 pages, 7 figures, SPIE (2016) 9908-373

We present the integration status for `imaka, the ground-layer adaptive optics (GLAO) system on the University of Hawaii 2.2-meter telescope on Maunakea, Hawaii. This wide-field GLAO pathfinder system exploits Maunakea's highly confined ground layer and weak free-atmosphere to push the corrected field of view to ~1/3 of a degree, an areal field approaching an order of magnitude larger than any existing or planned GLAO system, with a FWHM ~ 0.33 arcseconds in the visible and near infrared. We discuss the unique design aspects of the instrument, the driving science cases and how they impact the system, and how we will demonstrate these cases on the sky., Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures

IRIS (InfraRed Imaging Spectrograph) is one of the first-generation instruments for the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). IRIS is composed of a combination of near-infrared (0.84--2.4 $\mu$m) diffraction limited imager and integral field spectrograph. To achieve near-diffraction limited resolutions in the near-infrared wavelength region, IRIS uses the advanced adaptive optics system NFIRAOS (Narrow Field Infrared Adaptive Optics System) and integrated on-instrument wavefront sensors (OIWFS). However, IRIS itself has challenging specifications. First, the overall system wavefront error should be less than 40 nm in Y, z, J, and H-band and 42 nm in K-band over a 34.0 $\times$ 34.0 arcsecond field of view. Second, the throughput of the imager components should be more than 42 percent. To achieve the extremely low wavefront error and high throughput, all reflective design has been newly proposed. We have adopted a new design policy called "Co-Axis double-TMA", which cancels the asymmetric aberrations generated by "collimator/TMA" and "camera/TMA" efficiently. The latest imager design meets all specifications, and, in particular, the wavefront error is less than 17.3 nm and throughput is more than 50.8 percent. However, to meet the specification of wavefront error and throughput as built performance, the IRIS imager requires both mirrors with low surface irregularity after high-reflection coating in cryogenic and high-level Assembly Integration and Verification (AIV). To deal with these technical challenges, we have done the tolerance analysis and found that total pass rate is almost 99 percent in the case of gauss distribution and more than 90 percent in the case of parabolic distribution using four compensators. We also have made an AIV plan and feasibility check of the optical elements. In this paper, we will present the details of this optical system., Comment: 18 pages, 14 figures, Proceeding 9908-386 of the SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation 2016

In the field of exoplanetary sciences, high contrast imaging is crucial for the direct detection of, and answering questions about habitability of exoplanets. For the direct imaging of habitable exoplanets, it is important to employ low inner working angle (IWA) coronagraphs, which can image exoplanets close to the PSF. To achieve the full performance of such coronagraphs, it is crucial to correct for atmospheric dispersion to the highest degree, as any leakage will limit the contrast. To achieve the highest contrast with the state-of-the-art coronagraphs in the SCExAO instrument, the spread in the point-spread function due to residual atmospheric dispersion should not be more than 1 mas in the science band. In a traditional approach, atmospheric dispersion is compensated by an atmospheric dispersion compensator (ADC), which is simply based on model which only takes into account the elevation of telescope and hence results in imperfect correction of dispersion. In this paper we present the first on-sky closed-loop measurement and correction of residual atmospheric dispersion. Exploiting the elongated nature of chromatic speckles, we can precisely measure the presence of atmospheric dispersion and by driving the ADC, we can do real-time correction. With the above approach, in broadband operation (y-H band) we achieved a residual of 4.2 mas from an initial 18.8 mas and as low as 1.4 mas in H-band only after correction, which is close to our science requirement. This work will be valuable in the field of high contrast imaging of habitable exoplanets in the era of the ELTs.

著者人数: 42名, Accepted: 2011-03-08, 資料番号: SA1003241000

We are developing a laser guide star adaptive optics (LGSAO) system for the Subaru Telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. The AO188 system will dramatically increase the observable sky area. This system differs from systems used at other large telescopes in that it utilizes the combination of an all-solid-state mode-locked sumfrequency generation (SFG) laser as a light source and single-mode optical fiber for beam transference. Optical fibers transfer laser light from the source, located at the Nasmyth platform, to the laser launching telescope more flexibly and more easily than do mirror relay optics. However, optical fibers induce nonlinear scattering effects, such as stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) and stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS), beyond certain threshold levels in high-power lasers. We measured the laser transmission characteristics of a photonic crystal fiber (PCF) whose mode field diameter (MFD) was 11 � m, and a step index fiber (SIF) cable whose MFD was 4.2 � m to evaluate the threshold levels for non-linear effects. We observed SRS in the 200-m-long SIF when we input 1.3 W. However, SRS and SBS were not induced in the 200-m-long PCF, even for an input power of 5.3 W. As a result, we estimated the threshold of SRS to be 33 W for the 35-m-long PCF designed for the Subaru LGSAO system. Given that the fiber will carry a laser beam of about 30 W with a pulse width of less than 1 ns, we conclude that nonlinear scattering will pose no problems for this application.

Curvature wavefront sensors measure wavefront phase aberration by acquiring two intensity images on either side of the pupil plane. Low-order adaptive optics (AO) systems using curvature wavefront sensing (CWFS) have proved to be highly efficient for astronomical applications: they are more sensitive, use fewer detector elements, and achieve, for the same number of actuators, higher Strehl ratios than AO systems using more traditional Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensors. In higher-order systems, however, curvature wavefront sensors lose sensitivity to low spatial frequencies wavefront aberrations. This effect, often described as "noise propagation," limits the usefulness of curvature wavefront sensing for high-order AO systems and/or large telescopes. In this paper, we first explain how this noise propagation effect occurs and then show that this limitation can be overcome by acquiring four defocused images of the pupil instead of two. This solution can be implemented without significant technology development and can run with a simple linear wavefront reconstruction algorithm at >kHz speed. We have successfully demonstrated in the laboratory that the four conjugation planes can be sequentially obtained at >kHz speed using a speaker-vibrating membrane assembly commonly used in current curvature AO systems. Closed loop simulations show that implementing this scheme is equivalent to making the guide star 1 to 1.5 magnitude brighter for the configuration tested (188 actuator elements on 8-m telescope). Higher sensitivity gains are expected on curvature systems with higher number of actuators.

The InfraRed Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) will be a first-light client instrument for the Narrow Field Infrared Adaptive Optics System (NFIRAOS) on the Thirty Meter Telescope. IRIS includes three configurable tip/tilt (TT) or tip/tilt/focus (TTF) On-Instrument Wavefront Sensors (OIWFS). These sensors are positioned over natural guide star (NGS) asterisms using movable polar-coordinate pick-off arms (POA) that patrol an approximately 2-arcminute circular field-of-view (FOV). The POAs are capable of colliding with one another, so an algorithm for coordinated motion that avoids contact is required. We have adopted an approach in which arm motion is evaluated using the gradient descent of a scalar potential field that includes an attractive component towards the goal configuration (locations of target stars), and repulsive components to avoid obstacles (proximity to adjacent arms). The resulting vector field is further modified by adding a component transverse to the repulsive gradient to avoid problematic local minima in the potential. We present path planning simulations using this computationally inexpensive technique, which exhibit smooth and efficient trajectories., Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, SPIE (2016) 9913-29

Direct detection and spectroscopy of exoplanets requires high contrast imaging. For habitable exoplanets in particular, located at small angular separation from the host star, it is crucial to employ small inner working angle (IWA) coronagraphs that efficiently suppress starlight. These coronagraphs, in turn, require careful control of the wavefront which directly impacts their performance. For ground-based telescopes, atmospheric refraction is also an important factor, since it results in a smearing of the PSF, that can no longer be efficiently suppressed by the coronagraph. Traditionally, atmospheric refraction is compensated for by an atmospheric dispersion compensator (ADC). ADC control relies on an a priori model of the atmosphere whose parameters are solely based on the pointing of the telescope, which can result in imperfect compensation. For a high contrast instrument like the Subaru Coronagraphic Extreme Adaptive Optics (SCExAO) system, which employs very small IWA coronagraphs, refraction-induced smearing of the PSF has to be less than 1 mas in the science band for optimum performance. In this paper, we present the first on-sky measurement and correction of residual atmospheric dispersion. Atmospheric dispersion is measured from the science image directly, using an adaptive grid of artificially introduced speckles as a diagnostic to feedback to the telescope's ADC. With our current setup, we were able to reduce the initial residual atmospheric dispersion from 18.8 mas to 4.2 in broadband light (y- to H-band), and to 1.4 mas in H-band only. This work is particularly relevant to the upcoming extremely large telescopes (ELTs) that will require fine control of their ADC to reach their full high contrast imaging potential., Comment: 8 Pages, 10 figures, accepted to PASP

IRIS is a near-infrared (0.84 to 2.4 microns) integral field spectrograph and wide-field imager being developed for first light with the Thirty Meter (TMT). It mounts to the advanced optics (AO) system NFIRAOS and has integrated on-instrument wavefront sensors (OIWFS) to achieve diffraction-limited spatial resolution at wavelengths longer than 1 micron. With moderate spectral resolution (R ~4,000 - 8,000) and large bandpass over a continuous field of view, IRIS will open new opportunities in virtually every area of astrophysical science. It will be able to resolve surface features tens of kilometers across Titan, while also mapping the distant galaxies at the scale of an individual star forming region. This paper summarizes the entire design and capabilities, and includes the results from the nearly completed preliminary design phase., Comment: 13 pages, SPIE proceeedings

We present the performances of direct imaging with adaptive optics, coronagraph, and imaging-polarimetry of the coronagraphic imager with adaptive optics (CIAO) for the Subaru telescope. Combining with the 36-element adaptive optics system, CIAO produces high-resolution images with a full width at half maximum of 0. 072 and a Strehl ratio of 0.28 in the K band. CIAO has a Lyot’s-type stellar coronagraph facility with 0. �� 1t o 4. �� 0 diameter masks. The limiting magnitude difference of a companion star at the K band is 11.0mag at 5 σ, 10 minutes integration time, and 2. �� 0 separation from the central star. CIAO also has a polarimetry facility with a rotatable half-wave

The design and performance of the Cassegrain Adaptive Optics (AO) system for the 8.2m Subaru Telescope are reported. The system is based on a curvature wavefront sensor with 36 photon-counting avalanche photodiode modules and a bimorph wavefront correcting deformable mirror with 36 driving electrodes. The engineering first light of the AO system took place in 2000 December. The AO system has been in service since 2002 April for two open-use instruments, an infrared camera and spectrograph and a coronagraph imager with adaptive optics. The Strehl ratio in the K-band is around 0.3 for bright guide stars under 0. �� 4 K-band seeing condition. The control loop performs with 2060 corrections per second. High sensitivity of the wavefront sensor allows significant improvement in the image quality, even for faint guide stars down to R = 18mag. The FWHM of stellar images in a globular cluster was measured to derive an estimation of the isoplanatic angle and was found nearly constant out to 30 �� from the guide star, indicating that the height of the effective turbulent layer of that particular night was less than 1.8km. The on-going upgrade plans for a fivefold increase in the number of control elements and for the installation of a laser guide AO system are described.

The scattered light from the sodium laser beam projected from the Keck II telescope during their laser guide star experiment campaign conducted at the end of 2001 was measured using the Subaru Telescope, 221 m away from the Keck II telescope. The purpose of our measurement was to evaluate the observational impact of the scattered light from the laser beam on other telescopes whose field of view happens to cross the laser beam. The actual flux level at the wavelength of 589 nm (sodium D2 line) measured when the Subaru Telescope was pointing toward the Keck II laser beam at elevation angles of 45 and 60 was roughly equivalent to 19.5 mag arcsec 2 calibrated by a standard-star magnitude in the R band. The present measurements provide the first quantitative assessment of the level of scattered light from the laser beam observed from other nearby telescopes. The results of measurements were shown to be consistent with theoretical estimation based on the laser beam flux and the efficiency of the scattering due to molecules and aerosols in the atmosphere. Although the impact of this scattered light depends on the type of observation, we show that the surface brightness of the sodium laser beam at the focal plane of the telescope is no brighter than the sky background 45 away from the full moon, when the collision of the laser beam and telescope pointing takes place at relatively low altitude, for instance several hundred meters above the ground. In this case, many observations could be performed without significant deterioration. Disturbance to astronomical observations could be significant, however, when a nearby telescope is pointed in the vicinity of the laser guide star, because of the presence of the defocused laser guide star itself at around 10 mag in the observing field of view, or because of the increase of total flux of scattered light from the laser beam that occurs when the optical axis of the telescope and the center of the laser beam collide at an altitude of around 8 km.

A future plan for the next-generation Subaru adaptive optics, is a system based on an adaptive secondary mirror. A ground-layer adaptive optics combined with a new wide-field multi-object infrared camera and spectrograph will be a main application of the adaptive secondary mirror. A preliminary simulation results show that the resolution achieved by the ground-layer adaptive optics is expected to be better than 0.2 arcsecond in the K-band over 15 arcminutes field-of-view. In this paper, the performance simulation is updated taking dependence on observation conditions, the zenith angle and the season, into account.

Current AO observations rely heavily on the AO188 instrument, a 188-elements system that can operate in natural or laser guide star (LGS) mode, and delivers diffraction-limited images in near-IR. In its LGS mode, laser light is transported from the solid state laser to the launch telescope by a single mode fiber. AO188 can feed several instruments: the infrared camera and spectrograph (IRCS), a high contrast imaging instrument (HiCIAO) or an optical integral field spectrograph (Kyoto-3DII). Adaptive optics development in support of exoplanet observations has been and continues to be very active. The Subaru Coronagraphic Extreme-AO (SCExAO) system, which combines extreme-AO correction with advanced coronagraphy, is in the commissioning phase, and will greatly increase Subaru Telescope’s ability to image and study exoplanets. SCExAO currently feeds light to HiCIAO, and will soon be combined with the CHARIS integral field spectrograph and the fast frame MKIDs exoplanet camera, which have both been specifically designed for high contrast imaging. SCExAO also feeds two visible-light single pupil interferometers: VAMPIRES and FIRST. In parallel to these direct imaging activities, a near-IR high precision spectrograph (IRD) is under development for observing exoplanets with the radial velocity technique. Wide-field adaptive optics techniques are also being pursued. The RAVEN multi-object adaptive optics instrument was installed on Subaru telescope in early 2014. Subaru Telescope is also planning wide field imaging with ground-layer AO with the ULTIMATE-Subaru project.

We introduce current status of the feasibility study on a wide field of regard (FoR) Multi-Object Adaptive Optics (MOAO) system for TMT (TMT-AGE: TMT-Analyzer for Galaxies in the Early universe). MOAO is a system which realize high spatial-resolution observations of multiple objects scattered in a wide FoR. In this study, we put emphasise on the FoR as wide as 10′ diameter. The wide FoR is crucial to effectively observe very high-redshift galaxies, which have low surface number density. Simulations of an MOAO system with 8 LGSs show close-to-diffraction-limited correction can be achieved within 5′ diameter FoR and moderate AO correction can be achieved within 10′ diameter FoR. We discuss overall system design of the wide FoR MOAO system considering the constraint from the stroke of small-size deformable mirror (DM). We also introduce current status of developments of key components of an MOAO system; high-dynamic range wavefront sensor (WFS) and large-stroke small-size DM, and real time computer (RTC) with fast tomographic reconstruction.

Raven is a Multi-Object Adaptive Optics (MOAO) technical and science demonstrator which had its first light at the Subaru telescope on May 13-14, 2014. Raven was built and tested at the University of Victoria AO Lab before shipping to Hawai`i. Raven includes three open loop wavefront sensors (WFSs), a central laser guide star WFS, and two independent science channels feeding light to the Subaru IRCS spectrograph. Raven supports different kinds of AO correction: SCAO, open-loop GLAO and MOAO. The MOAO mode can use different tomographic reconstructors, such as Learn-and-Apply or a model-based reconstructor. This paper presents the latest results obtained in the lab, which are consistent with simulated performance, as well as preliminary on-sky results, including echelle spectra from IRCS. Ensquared energy obtained on sky in 140mas slit is 17%, 30% and 41% for GLAO, MOAO and SCAO respectively. This result confirms that MOAO can provide a level of correction in between GLAO and SCAO, in any direction of the field of regard, regardless of the science target brightness.

International audience; The Subaru Coronagraphic Extreme Adaptive Optics (SCExAO) instrument is one of a handful of extreme adaptive optics systems set to come online in 2014. The extreme adaptive optics correction is realized by a combination of precise wavefront sensing via a non-modulated pyramid wavefront sensor and a 2000 element deformable mirror. This system has recently begun on-sky commissioning and was operated in closed loop for several minutes at a time with a loop speed of 800 Hz, on ~150 modes. Further suppression of quasi-static speckles is possible via a process called "speckle nulling" which can create a dark hole in a portion of the frame allowing for an enhancement in contrast, and has been successfully tested on-sky. In addition to the wavefront correction there are a suite of coronagraphs on board to null out the host star which include the phase induced amplitude apodization (PIAA), the vector vortex, 8 octant phase mask, 4 quadrant phase mask and shaped pupil versions which operate in the NIR (y-K bands). The PIAA and vector vortex will allow for high contrast imaging down to an angular separation of 1 lambda/D to be reached; a factor of 3 closer in than other extreme AO systems. Making use of the left over visible light not used by the wavefront sensor is VAMPIRES and FIRST. These modules are based on aperture masking interferometry and allow for sub-diffraction limited imaging with moderate contrasts of ~100-1000:1. Both modules have undergone initial testing on-sky and are set to be fully commissioned by the end of 2014.

Adaptive optics (AO) enables us to observe objects with high spatial resolution, which is important in most astrophysical observations. Most AO systems are operational at near-infrared wavelengths but not in the optical range, because optical observations require a much higher performance to obtain the same Strehl ratio as near-infrared observations. Therefore, to enable AO-assisted observations at optical wavelengths, we connected the Kyoto Tridimensional Spectrograph II (Kyoto 3DII), which can perform integral field spectroscopy, to the second generation AO system of the Subaru Telescope (AO188). We developed a new beam-splitter that reflects light below 594 nm for the wavefront sensors of AO188 and transmits above 644 nm for Kyoto 3DII. We also developed a Kyoto 3DII mount at the Nasmyth focus of the Subaru Telescope. In test observations, the spatial resolution of the combined AO188–Kyoto 3DII was higher than that in natural seeing conditions, even at 6500 A. The full width at half maximum of an undersampled (1.5 spaxels) bright guide star (7.0 mag in the V-band) was 012.

IRD is the near-infrared high-precision radial velocity instrument for the Subaru 8.2-m telescope. It is a relatively compact (~1m size) spectrometer with a new echelle-grating and Volume-Phase Holographic gratings covering 1-2 micron wavelengths combined with an original frequency comb using optical pulse synthesizer. The spectrometer will employ a 4096x4096-pixel HgCdTe array under testing at IfA, University of Hawaii. Both the telescope/Adaptive Optics and comb beams are fed to the spectrometer via optical fibers, while the instrument is placed at the Nasmyth platform of the Subaru telescope. Expected accuracy of the Doppler-shifted velocity measurements is about 1 m s-1. Helped with the large collecting area and high image quality of the Subaru telescope, IRD can conduct systematic radial velocity surveys of nearby middle-to-late M stars aiming for down to one Earth-mass planet. Systematic observational and theoretical studies of M stars and their planets for the IRD science are also ongoing. We will report the design and preliminary development progresses of the whole and each component of IRD.

The Subaru adaptive optics system (AO188) is a 188-element curvature sensor adaptive optics system that is operated in both natural and laser guide star modes. AO188 is installed at Nasmyth platform of the 8m Subaru telescope as a facility AO system. The laser guide star mode for AO188 has been commissioned and offered for use in science operation since 2011. The performance of AO188 in the laser guide star mode has been well verified from on-sky data obtained with the infrared camera and spectrograph (IRCS). In this paper, we describe the operation procedure and observing efficiency for the laser guide star mode. We also show the result of the on-sky performance evaluation of AO188 in the laser guide star mode and the characterization of the laser guide star, together with the obtained science results.

A wide-field adaptive optics system based on an adaptive secondary mirror (ASM) is one of a future plan for the next-generation Subaru adaptive optics system. The main application of ASM based AO will be a groundlayer adaptive optics (GLAO) with field-of-view larger than 10 arc minutes. The high Strehl-ratio of on-source correction by high-order ASM (expected to be about 1000) and the reduction of emissivity are also attractive points. In this paper, we report a preliminary result of simulations for the these applications of ASM to study conceptual design of the next-generation wide-field Subaru adaptive optics.

The Subaru laser guide star adaptive optics system (AO188) was installed at the Nasmyth focus of the Subaru Telescope on October 2006 and it is in operation with the natural guide star (NGS) mode. The operation of the laser guide star (LGS) mode started on January 2010. A visible low-order wavefront sensor (LOWFS) was built to measure tip-tilt and defocus terms of wavefront by using a single NGS within a 2.7 arcmin diameter field when an LGS is used for high-order wavefront sensing with the 188-element curvature based wavefront sensor. This LOWFS is a 2 × 2 sub-aperture Shack-Hartmann sensor with 16 photon-counting avalanche photodiode (APD) modules. A 4×4-element lenslet array is located after the 2 × 2 sub-aperture Shack-Hartmann lenslet array and it is coupled with the APD modules through optical fibers. The field of view of the LOWFS is 4 arcsec in diameter. It has own guide star acquisition unit, acquisition and pupil cameras, and atmospheric dispersion corrector. We describe the design, construction, and integration of this low-order wavefront sensor.

We are commissioning the Laser Guide Star Adaptive Optics (LGS/AO188) system for Subaru Telescope at Hawaii, Mauna Kea. This system utilizes a combination of an all-solid-state mode-locked sum-frequency generation (SFG) laser (1.7GHz-bandwidth, 0.7ns-pulse width) as a light source and single-mode optical fiber for beam transference. However, optical fibers induce nonlinear scattering effects, such as stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) and stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS), beyond certain threshold levels in high-power lasers. We measured the laser transmission characteristics of a photonic crystal fiber (PCF) whose mode field diameter (MFD) was 11 μ m, and a step index fiber (SIF) cable whose MFD was 4.2 μ m to evaluate the threshold levels for non-linear effects. We observed SRS in the 200-m-long SIF when we input 1.3W. The material losses of them were 10db/km and 6.4dB/km, respectively. However, SRS and SBS were not induced in the 200-m-long PCF, even for an input power of 5.3W. As a result, we estimated the threshold of SRS to be 33W for the 35-m-long PCF designed for the Subaru LGSAO system. Other than SRS and SBS, we found self phase modulation (SPM) in our PCF. SPM makes the spectrum of the laser beam broaden and it causes less efficiency of generating bright LGS. We measured width of the spectrum by spectrum analyzer. As the result, we found it was 9.1GHz of full width half maximum (FWHM) in comparison with the original FWHM of our laser spectrum, 2.1GHz. This shows 70% of the laser energy for brightening the LGS was lost. We also measured the brightness of the LGS and evaluated its relationship with wavelength of the laser. The LGS's brightness showed a peculiar tendency that did not be extinguish even though the wavelength has varied about 2pm. The tendency was not shown with the experiment using sodium gas cell. Therefore, it may be concerned the environment of the sodium layer in the mesosphere.

A tip/tilt off-load function from AO188 deformable mirror mount to Subaru telescope infrared secondary mirror has been implemented and tested. The function is effective to reduce the influence of strong background pattern at thermal infrared wavelengths. We describe the function and report the test results in this paper.

In this paper, we present the science path ADC unit (atmospheric dispersion corrector) for the AO188 Adaptive Optics System of the Subaru Telescope. The AO188 instrument is a curvature-based Adaptive Optics system with 188 subapertures and achieves good correction down to shorter wavelengths like J-band. At these wavelengths, the atmospheric dispersion within the band becomes significant and thus a correction of the atmospheric dispersion is essential to reach diffraction-limited image quality. We give an overview of the requirements, the final optical and mechanical design of the ADC unit, as well as the structure of its control software.

The current status of commissioning and recent results in performance of Subaru laser guide star adaptive optics system is presented. After the first light using natural guide stars with limited configuration of the system in October 2006, we concentrated to complete a final configuration for a natural guide star to serve AO188 to an open use observation. On sky test with full configurations using natural guide star started in August 2008, and opened to a public one month later. We continuously achieved around 0.6 to 0.7 of Strehl ratio at K band using a bright guide star around 9th to 10th magnitude in R band. We found an unexpectedly large wavefront error in our laser launching telescope. The modification to fix this large wavefront error was made and we resumed the characterization of a laser guide star in February 2009. Finally we obtained a round-shaped laser guide star, whose image size is about 1.2 to 1.6 arcsec under the typical seeing condition. We are in the final phase of commissioning. A diffraction limited image by our AO system using a laser guide star will be obtained in the end of 2010. An open use observation with laser guide star system will start in the middle of 2011.

We report recent development in real time control system of Subaru adaptive optics system. The main topic is modification of the real time control system for laser guide star operation. The primary change is appending lower order wave-front sensor. And also, an auxiliary tip-tilt and focus control are appended before higher order waver-front sensor to absorb the perturbation of the laser beam and height of sodium layer. Our implementations using the control gain matrix are introduced thoroughly from the basis of the system design and down to the details. Also, other new function and prospects in the near future will be presented for the cascaded average monitor and the time domain over sampling.

We are developing a laser guide star (LGS) system for the 188-elements Adaptive Optics system (AO188) of theSubaru telescope. In this paper we describe the results of the performance tests of the LGS system. The beamthat excites sodium atoms at 90 km altitude of the LGS is generated by the following sequence. The sourceof the beam is a quasi-CW mode locked sum-frequency generating 589 nm laser. This laser beam propagatesthrough a diagnostics system for mea suring the wavelength and the beam q uality. Then it couples into a solid-core photonic crystal “ber cable for transmitting the beam to a telescope for launching the beam (LLT: LaserLaunching Telescope). The output beam from this “ber cable is collimated by the optics mounted on theLLT. This collimated beam is expanded by the LLT and launched into the sky. We executed several engineeringobservations of the LGS system from 2009 for con“rming the performance of all the components in this sequence.We also report the quality of the LGS.Keywords: Adaptive Optics, Laser Guide Star, Sodium Laser

Subaru adaptive optics system (AO188) is an 188-elements curvature sensor adaptive optics system that is operated in both natural and laser guide star modes. AO188 was installed at Nasmyth platform of the Subaru telescope and it has been successfully operating in the natural guide star mode since October 2008. The performance of AO188 in the natural guide star mode has been well verified from on-sky data obtained with the infrared camera and spectrograph (IRCS). Under normal seeing condition, AO188 achieves K-band Strehl ratio between 60% and 70% using R =9 .0 magnitude natural guide stars and it works well with faint guide stars down to R =1 6.5 magnitude. We measured the FWHM and Strehl ratio of stellar images in globular clusters and found that the isoplanatic angle is approximately 30 arcsec. In this paper, we describe an overview of the operation procedure for AO188, as well as its performance such as angular resolution, Strehl ration, and sensitivity gain for detecting faint objects.

HiCIAO is a near-infrared, high contrast instrument which is specifically designed for searches and studies for extrasolar planets and proto-planetary/debris disks on the Subaru 8.2 m telescope. A coronagraph technique and three differential observing modes, i.e., a dual-beam simultaneous polarimetric differential imaging mode, quad-beam simultaneous spectral differential imaging mode, and angular differential imaging mode, are used to extract faint objects from the sea of speckle around bright stars. We describe the instrument performances verified in the laboratory and during the commissioning period. Readout noise with a correlated double sampling method is 15 e- using the Sidecar ASIC controller with the HAWAII-2RG detector array, and it is as low as 5 e- with a multiple sampling method. Strehl ratio obtained by HiCIAO on the sky combined with the 188-actuator adaptive optics system (AO188) is 0.4 and 0.7 in the H and K-band, respectively, with natural guide stars that have R ~ 5 and under median seeing conditions. Image distortion is correctable to 7 milli-arcsec level using the ACS data as a reference image. Examples of contrast performances in the observing modes are presented from data obtained during the commissioning period. An observation for HR 8799 in the angular differential imaging mode shows a clear detection of three known planets, demonstrating the high contrast capability of AO188+HiCIAO.