Developments on LLNL's high contrast testbed and Lick/ShaneAO

TL;DR

This paper reports on the development and testing of advanced adaptive optics technologies at LLNL's High Contrast Testbed, including a Wynne corrector, multi-wavefront sensor control, and upgrades for on-sky deployment at Lick Observatory.

Contribution

It introduces new AO components and control methods, and demonstrates their integration and testing in a high contrast testbed environment.

Findings

Successful testing of Wynne corrector prototype with self-coherent camera

Development of multi-WFS SCAO control for improved AO performance

Progress on deploying these technologies on-sky at Lick Observatory

Abstract

LLNL has recently setup a High Contrast Testbed (HCT) for AO and exoplanet imaging technology development. We present the various HCT technologies currently under development, including (1) a Wynne corrector, (2) multi-wavefront sensor (WFS) single conjugate AO (SCAO) control. We present HCT testing results of a first Wynne corrector prototype with a self-coherent camera. We present updates on development efforts to design and apply multi-WFS SCAO control to our HCT setup. We also present ongoing HCT deformable mirror and WFS upgrades. Lastly, we present developments for REDWOODS, a project to deploy many of these technologies on-sky on a sub-bench of the Shane AO system at Lick Observatory.