Wavefront sensing from the image domain with the Oxford-SWIFT integral field spectrograph

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a novel wavefront sensing method using kernel phase from a single image with an asymmetric pupil mask, improving AO correction for integral field spectrographs on ground-based telescopes.

Contribution

First application of kernel phase-based wavefront sensing to ground-based AO, enabling high-order aberration mapping with a single image and asymmetric pupil mask.

Findings

Achieved near-diffraction-limited performance with SWIFT and PALM-3000 at Palomar.

Successfully approached the Airy pattern in the PSF, indicating high correction quality.

Demonstrated feasibility of detecting non-common-path errors in AO systems.

Abstract

The limits for adaptive-optics (AO) imaging at high contrast and high resolution are determined by residual phase errors from non-common-path aberrations not sensed by the wavefront sensor, especially for integral field spectrographs, where phase diversity techniques are complicated by the image slicer. We present the first application of kernel phase-based wavefront sensing to ground-based AO, where an asymmetric pupil mask and a single image are sufficient to map aberrations up to high order. We push toward internally diffraction-limited performance with the Oxford-SWIFT integral field spectrograph coupled with the PALM-3000 extreme AO system on the Palomar 200-inch telescope. This represents the first observation in which the PALM-3000 + SWIFT internal point-spread-function has closely approached the Airy pattern. While this can only be used on SWIFT with an internal stimulus source, as at short wavelengths the uncorrected atmospheric wavefront errors are still > 1 radian, this nevertheless demonstrates the feasibility of detecting non-common-path errors with this method as an active optics paradigm for near-infrared, AO-corrected instruments at Palomar. We note that this is a particularly promising approach for correcting integral field spectrographs, as the diversity of many narrowband images provides strong constraints on the wavefront error estimate, and the average of reconstructions from many narrow bands can be used to improve overall reconstruction quality.