MagAO-X is an entirely new extreme adaptive optics system for the Magellan Clay 6.5 m telescope, funded by the NSF MRI program starting in Sep 2016. The key science goal of MagAO-X is high-contrast imaging of accreting protoplanets at Hα. With 2040 actuators operating at up to 3630 Hz, MagAO-X will deliver high Strehls (> 70%), high resolution (19 mas), and high contrast (< 1 × 10 −4 ) at Hα (656 nm). We present an overview of the MagAO-X system, review the system design, and discuss the current project status.
Current high contrast imaging systems are limited at small angular separations, preventing the direct imaging of Earth-size exoplanets close to their host stars. One primary cause of this is the performance of the extreme adaptive optics (AO) system which is dominated by the servo-lag error at small angular separations. Prediction can be used to help reduce this servo-lag error. Most AO systems today do not use predictive controllers (integral controller), resulting in a phase correction that is proportional to the current measured wavefront and does not take into account the evolution of the wavefront phase fluctuations between measurement and correction. To improve upon this, we focus on the development of different predictive control strategies that estimate how the wavefront phase fluctuations evolve over a time horizon equal to the servo-lag. Moreover, the statistical properties of the turbulence phase are non-stationary (change in time) which needs to be included in the AO analysis for high contrast imaging systems. First, we show that the non-stationary properties of the atmosphere can be modeled using a von Karman covariance function which can incorporate variations in time of the Fried parameter, outer scale, and wind velocity. Using this new disturbance model of turbulence, the performance of three different predictors-based on a steady state, a recursive, and an adaptive linear-minimum-mean-squareestimator (LMMSE)-is tested under non-stationary conditions. We feed the prediction algorithms wavefront slopes from a 11-by-11 subaperture Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor. A 97 actuator deformable mirror applies the predictor's phase correction. We present the latest results of our simulations and compare our predictors with the common integrator. We show that under our varying wind conditions, the root-mean-square wavefront error can increase by a factor of two for both the integrator and our predictors. In our simulations, we do not observe an increase in performance using an exponential forgetting factor adaptive LMMSE.
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In this White Paper, which was submitted in response to the European Space Agency (ESA) Voyage 2050 Call, we recommend the ESA plays a proactive role in developing a global collaborative effort to construct a large high-contrast imaging space telescope, e.g. as currently under study by NASA. Such a mission will be needed to characterize a sizable sample of temperate Earth-like planets in the habitable zones of nearby Sun-like stars and to search for extraterrestrial biological activity. We provide an overview of relevant European expertise, and advocate ESA to start a technology development program towards detecting life outside the Solar System.
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