Local Turbulence: Effects and causes

TL;DR

This paper introduces AIR-FLOW, a novel optical turbulence sensor, and presents its application in characterizing dome seeing effects, revealing non-Kolmogorov turbulence and enabling real-time mitigation strategies at observatories.

Contribution

Development and testing of AIR-FLOW, a new interferometric turbulence sensor, to quantitatively analyze dome seeing and turbulence profiles in various observatory environments.

Findings

Evidence of non-Kolmogorov turbulence in dome seeing

AIR-FLOW effectively measures turbulence parameters like Cn2, r0, L0

Sensor can be used for real-time turbulence mitigation and site surveys

Abstract

Dome seeing is a known source of image quality degradation, but despite tremendous progress in wavefront control with the development of adaptive optics and environmental control through implementation of dome venting, surprisingly little is known about it quantitatively. We have found evidence of non-Kolmogorov dome turbulence from our observations with the imaka wide field adaptive optics system; PSFs seem to indicate an excess of high spatial frequencies and turbulence profiles reveal turbulence at negative conjugations. This has motivated the development of a new type of optical turbulence sensor called AIR-FLOW, Airborne Interferometric Recombiner: Fluctuations of Light at Optical Wavelengths. It is a non-redundant mask imaging interferometer that samples the optical turbulence passing through a measurement cell and it measures the two-dimensional optical Phase Structure Function. This is a useful tool to characterise different types of turbulence (e.g. Kolmogorov, diffusive turbulence, etc.). By fitting different models, we can determine parameters such as Cn 2 , r0, L0 or deviation from fully developed turbulence. The instrument was tested at the Canada France Hawaii Telescope, at the University of Hawaii 2.2-meter telescope (UH88'') and at the Observatoire de la C{\^o}te d'Azur. It is ruggedised and sensitive enough to detect changes with different dome vent configurations, as well as slow local variations of the index of refraction in the UH88'' telescope tube. The instrument is portable enough that it can be used to locate sources of turbulence inside and around domes, but it can also be used in an operational setting without affecting observations to characterise the local optical turbulence responsible for dome seeing. Thus, it could be used in real-time observatory control systems to configure vents and air handlers to effectively reduce dome seeing. We believe it could also be a tool for site surveys to evaluate dome seeing mitigation strategies in situ.