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We† provide an overview of the Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) language, tool, and methodology being used in our development of the Operational Plan for Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) operations. LSST’s Systems Engineering (SE) team is using a model-based approach to operational plan development to: 1) capture the topdown stakeholders’ needs and functional allocations defining the scope, required tasks, and personnel needed for operations, and 2) capture the bottom-up operations and maintenance activities required to conduct the LSST survey across its distributed operations sites for the full ten year survey duration. To accomplish these complimentary goals and ensure that they result in self-consistent results, we have developed a holistic approach using the Sparx Enterprise Architect modeling tool and Systems Modeling Language (SysML). This approach utilizes SysML Use Cases, Actors, associated relationships, and Activity Diagrams to document and refine all of the major operations and maintenance activities that will be required to successfully operate the observatory and meet stakeholder expectations. We have developed several customized extensions of the SysML language including the creation of a custom stereotyped Use Case element with unique tagged values, as well as unique association connectors and Actor stereotypes. We demonstrate this customized MBSE methodology enables us to define: 1) the rolls each human Actor must take on to successfully carry out the activities associated with the Use Cases; 2) the skills each Actor must possess; 3) the functional allocation of all required stakeholder activities and Use Cases to organizational entities tasked with carrying them out; and 4) the organization structure required to successfully execute the operational survey. Our approach allows for continual refinement utilizing the systems engineering spiral method to expose finer levels of detail as necessary. For example, the bottom-up, Use Case-driven approach will be deployed in the future to develop the detailed work procedures required to successfully execute each operational activity.

This paper describes the status and details of the large synoptic survey telescope 1,2,3 mount assembly (TMA). On June 9 th , 2014 the contract for the design and build of the large synoptic survey telescope mount assembly (TMA) was awarded to GHESA Ingenieria y Tecnologia, S.A. and Asturfeito, S.A. The design successfully passed the preliminary design review on October 2, 2015 and the final design revi ew January 29, 2016. This paper describes the detailed design by subsystem, analytical model results, preparations being ta ken to complete the fabrication, and the transportation and installation plans to install the mount on Cerro Pachon in Chile. This large project is the culmination of work by many people and the authors would like to thank everyone that has contributed to th e success of this project. Keywords: LSST, telescope, mount, elevation, azimuth, linear drives, tape encoders, 1. INTRODUCTION The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) is an 8.4-mete r wide-field (3.5-degree) survey telescope, which will be located on the summit of Cerro Pachon in Chile. The design of the telescope mount assembly is by GHESA Ingenieria y Tecnologia, S.A. Asturfeito, S.A, is fabricating the TMA in northern Spain is shall reinstall the mount on Cerro Pachon. The design of the mount control, camera cable wrap, and mirror covers is by IK4 Tekniker. The design and fabrication of the azimuth and elevation li near drives and capacitor bank is by Phase Motion Control. This telescope mount assembly supports the optics, camera, baffles, and the integral subsystems required to operate the telescope. This report provides an overview of the final design of the mount and all supporting subsystems.

All of the components of the LSST subsystems (Telescope and Site, Camera, and Data Management) are in production. The major systems engineering challenges in this early construction phase are establishing the final technical details of the observatory, and properly evaluating potential deviations from requirements due to financial or technical constraints emerging from the detailed design and manufacturing process. To meet these challenges, the LSST Project Systems Engineering team established an Integrated Modeling (IM) framework including (i) a high fidelity optical model of the observatory, (ii) an atmospheric aberration model, and (ii) perturbation interfaces capable of accounting for quasi static and dynamic variations of the optical train. The model supports the evaluation of three key LSST Measures of Performance: image quality, ellipticity, and their impact on image depth. The various feedback loops improving image quality are also included. The paper shows application examples, as an update to the estimated performance of the Active Optics System, the determination of deployment parameters for the wavefront sensors, the optical evaluation of the final M1M3 surface quality, and the feasibility of satisfying the settling time requirement for the telescope structure.

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) is currently under construction and upon completion will perform precision photometry over the visible sky at a 3-day cadence. To meet the stringent relative photometry goals, LSST will employ multiple calibration systems to measure and compensate for systematic errors. This paper describes the design and development of these systems including: a dedicated calibration telescope and spectrograph to measure the atmospheric transmission function, a collimated beam projector to characterize the spatial dependence of the LSST transmission function and an at-field screen illumination system to measure the high-frequency variations in the global system response function.

We show preliminary laboratory results advancing the technology readiness of a method to directly image planets and disks in multi-star systems such as Alpha Centauri. This method works with almost any coronagraph (or external occulter with a DM) and requires little or no change to existing and mature hardware. Because of the ubiquity of multistar systems, this method potentially multiplies the science yield of many missions and concepts such as WFIRST, Exo-C/S, HabEx, LUVOIR, and potentially enables the detection of Earth-like planets (if they exist) around our nearest neighbor star, Alpha Centauri, with a small and low-cost space telescope such as ACESat. We identified two main challenges associated with double-star (or multi-star) systems and methods to solve them. “Multi-Star Wavefront Control” (MSWC) enables the independent suppression of starlight from more than one star, and Super-Nyquist Wavefront Control (SNWC) enables extending MSWC to the case where star separation is beyond the Nyquist limit of the deformable mirror (DM). Our lab demonstrations were conducted at the Ames Coronagraph Experiment (ACE) laboratory and proved the basic principles of both MSWC and SNWC. They involved a 32x32 deformable mirror but no coronagraph for simplicity. We used MSWC to suppress starlight independently from two stars by at least an order of magnitude, in monochromatic as well as broadband light as broad as 50%. We also used SNWC to suppress starlight at 32 l/D, surpassing the Nyquist limit of the DM.

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) has a 10 degrees square field of view which is achieved through a 3 mirror optical system comprised of an 8.4 meter primary, 3.5 meter secondary (M2) and a 5 meter tertiary mirror. The M2 is a 100mm thick meniscus convex asphere. The mirror surface is actively controlled by 72 axial electromechanical actuators (axial actuators). Transverse support is provided by 6 active tangential electromechanical actuators (tangent links). The final design has been completed by Harris Corporation. They are also providing the fabrication, integration and testing of the mirror cell assembly, as well as the figuring of the mirror. The final optical surface will be produced by ion figuring. All the actuators will experience 1 year of simulated life testing to ensure that they can withstand the rigorous demands produced by the LSST survey mission. Harris Corporation is providing optical surface metrology to demonstrate both the quality of the optical surface and the correctablility produced by the axial actuators.

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) primary/tertiary (M1M3) mirror cell assembly supports both on-telescope operations and off-telescope mirror coating. This assembly consists of the cast borosilicate M1M3 monolith mirror, the mirror support systems, the thermal control system, a stray light baffle ring, a laser tracker interface and the supporting steel structure. During observing the M1M3 mirror is actively supported by pneumatic figure control actuators and positioned by a hexapod. When the active system is not operating the mirror is supported by a separate passive wire rope isolator system. The center of the mirror cell supports a laser tracker which measures the relative position of the camera and secondary mirror for alignment by their hexapods. The mirror cell structure height of 2 meters provides ample internal clearance for installation and maintenance of mirror support and thermal control systems. The mirror cell also functions as the bottom of the vacuum chamber during coating. The M1M3 mirror has been completed and is in storage. The mirror cell structure is presently under construction by CAID Industries. The figure control actuators, hexapod and thermal control system are under developed and will be integrated into the mirror cell assembly by LSST personnel. The entire integrated M1M3 mirror cell assembly will the tested at the Richard F Caris Mirror Lab in Tucson, AZ (formerly Steward Observatory Mirror Lab).

We make a detailed quantitative comparison of the wavefront recovery algorithms between those developed for Dark Energy Camera (DECam) and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). Samples used in this study include images of out of focus stars collected by the DECam at the Blanco 4-meter telescope and artificial simulated donut images. The data from DECam include wavefront images collected by the wavefront sensors and out-of-focus images where the entire DECam sensor array is used. For simulated images, we have used both the forward Fraunhofer diffraction and a LSST-like ZEMAX optical model where the images are convolved with Kolmogorov atmosphere. All samples are analyzed with the forward wavefront retrieval algorithm developed for DECam and the transport of intensity algorithm for LSST. Good quantitative agreement between results by the two implemented algorithms is observed.

In the construction phase since 2014, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) is an 8.4 meter diameter wide-field (3.5 degrees) survey telescope located on the summit of Cerro Pachon in Chile. The reflective telescope uses an 8.4 m f/1.06 concave primary, an annular 3.4 m meniscus convex aspheric secondary and a 5.2 m concave tertiary. The primary and tertiary mirrors are aspheric surfaces figured from a monolithic substrate and referred to as the M1M3 mirror. This unique design offers significant advantages in the reduction of degrees of freedom, improved structural stiffness for the otherwise annular surfaces, and enables a very compact design. The three-mirror system feeds a threeelement refractive corrector to produce a 3.5 degree diameter field of view on a 64 cm diameter flat focal surface. This paper describes the current status of the mirror system components and provides an overview of the upcoming milestones including the mirror coating and the mirror system integrated tests prior to summit integration.

This paper is the fourth in the series on the technology development for the EXCEDE (EXoplanetary Circumstellar Environments and Disk Explorer) mission concept, which in 2011 was selected by NASA's Explorer program for technology development (Category III). EXCEDE is a 0.7m space telescope concept operating with a Phase Induced Amplitude Apodization (PIAA) Coronagraph and a Deformable Mirror (DM) to create a "dark-hole" or a region of high-contrast starlight suppression at the focal plane to allow direct imaging of exoplanets. This will allow fundamental science in the form of direct detection and spatial resolution of low surface brightness circumstellar debris disks, and the direct imaging of giant planets with angular separations as close in as the habitable zone of the host star. Thus, EXCEDE can function as both a scientific and technological precursor for any mission capable of imaging exo-Earths. Previously, we have reported experimental results on the first milestone, the demonstration of EXCEDE contrast in monochromatic light in air and more recently in vacuum. In this paper, we report on the procedure and the experimental results obtained for our second milestone demonstration of the EXCEDE starlight suppression system carried in a vacuum chamber at the Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center. This includes high contrast performance demonstrations at 1.2 λD, which includes a lab demonstration of 1x10-5 median contrast between 1.2 and 2.0 λD simultaneously with 3x10-7 median contrast between 2 and 11 λD in 10% bandwidth polychromatic light centered at 650 nm for a single-sided dark zone. The results are stable and repeatable as demonstrated by three measurement runs with DM settings set from scratch and maintained on the best 90% out of the 1000 collected frames per run. We compare reduced experimental data with simulation results from modeling experimental limits.

Several mission concepts are being studied to directly image planets around nearby stars. It is commonly thought that directly imaging a potentially habitable exoplanet around a Sun-like star requires space telescopes with apertures of at least 1m. A notable exception to this is Alpha Centauri (A and B), which is an extreme outlier among FGKM stars in terms of apparent habitable zone size: the habitable zones are ~3x wider in apparent size than around any other FGKM star. This enables a ~30-45cm visible light space telescope equipped with a modern high performance coronagraph or starshade to resolve the habitable zone at high contrast and directly image any potentially habitable planet that may exist in the system. We presents a brief analysis of the astrophysical and technical challenges involved with direct imaging of Alpha Centauri with a small telescope and describe two new technologies that address some of the key technical challenges. In particular, the raw contrast requirements for such an instrument can be relaxed to 1e-8 if the mission spends 2 years collecting tens of thousands of images on the same target, enabling a factor of 500-1000 speckle suppression in post processing using a new technique called Orbital Difference Imaging (ODI). The raw light leak from both stars is controllable with a special wavefront control algorithm known as Multi-Star Wavefront Control (MSWC), which independently suppresses diffraction and aberrations from both stars using independent modes on the deformable mirror. We also show an example of a small coronagraphic mission concept to take advantage of this opportunity., 12 pages, 8 figures, 1 table, to appear in Proc. SPIE 9605. See other ACESat papers by Bendek, Males, and Thomas

Direct imaging of extra-solar planets is now a reality, especially with the deployment and commissioning of the first generation of specialized ground-based instruments such as the Gemini Planet Imager and SPHERE. These systems will allow detection of Jupiter-like planets $10^7$ times fainter than their host star. Obtaining this contrast level and beyond requires the combination of a coronagraph to suppress light coming from the host star and a wavefront control system including a deformable mirror (DM) to remove residual starlight (speckles) created by the imperfections of telescope. However, all these current and future systems focus on detecting faint planets around single host stars, while several targets or planet candidates are located around nearby binary stars such as our neighboring star Alpha Centauri. Here, we present a method to simultaneously correct aberrations and diffraction of light coming from the target star as well as its companion star in order to reveal planets orbiting the target star. This method works even if the companion star is outside the control region of the DM (beyond its half-Nyquist frequency), by taking advantage of aliasing effects., Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, SPIE conference, See other ACESat papers by Belikov, Bendek, and Males

The Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) is a facility extreme-AO high-contrast instrument – optimized solely for study of faint companions – on the Gemini telescope. It combines a high-order MEMS AO system (1493 active actuators), an apodized pupil Lyot coronagraph, a high-accuracy IR post-coronagraph wavefront sensor, and a near-infrared integral field spectrograph. GPI incorporates several other novel features such as ultra-high quality optics, a spatially-filtered wavefront sensor, and new calibration techniques. GPI had first light in November 2013. This paper presnets results of first-light and performance verification and optimization and shows early science results including extrasolar planet spectra and polarimetric detection of the HR4696A disk. GPI is now achieving contrasts approaching 10-6 at 0.5” in 30 minute exposures.

For the technology development of the mission EXCEDE (EXoplanetary Circumstellar Environments and Disk Explorer) - a 0.7 m telescope equipped with a Phase-Induced Amplitude Apodization Coronagraph (PIAA-C) and a 2000-element MEMS deformable mirror, capable of raw contrasts of 1e-6 at 1.2 lambda/D and 1e-7 above 2 lambda/D - we developed two test benches simulating its key components, one in air, the other in vacuum. To achieve this level of contrast, one of the main goals is to remove low-order aberrations, using a Low-Order WaveFront Sensor (LOWFS). We tested this key component, together with the coronagraph and the wavefront control, in air at NASA Ames Research Center and in vacuum at Lockheed Martin. The LOWFS, controlling tip/tilt modes in real time at 1~kHz, allowed us to reduce the disturbances in air to 1e-3 lambda/D rms, letting us achieve a contrast of 2.8e-7 between 1.2 and 2 lambda/D. Tests are currently being performed to achieve the same or a better level of correction in vacuum. With those results, and by comparing them to simulations, we are able to deduce its performances on different coronagraphs - different sizes of telescopes, inner working angles, contrasts, etc. - and therefore study its contribution beyond EXCEDE., Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures. Proceedings of the SPIE, 9143-66

In this paper we describe the opto-mechanical design, tolerance error budget an alignment strategies used to build the Starlight Suppression System (SSS) for the Exoplanetary Circumstellar Environments and Disk Explorer (EXCEDE) NASA’s mission. EXCEDE is a highly efficient 0.7m space telescope concept designed to directly image and spatially resolve circumstellar disks with as little as 10 zodis of circumstellar dust, as well as large planets. The main focus of this work was the design of a vacuum compatible opto-mechanical system that allows remote alignment and operation of the main components of the EXCEDE. SSS, which are: a Phase Induced Amplitude Apodization (PIAA) coronagraph to provide high throughput and high contrast at an inner working angle (IWA) equal to the diffraction limit (IWA = 1.2 l/D), a wavefront (WF) control system based on a Micro-Electro-Mechanical-System deformable mirror (MEMS DM), and low order wavefront sensor (LOWFS) for fine pointing and centering. We describe in strategy and tolerance error budget for this system, which is especially relevant to achieve the theoretical performance that PIAA coronagraph can offer. We also discuss the vacuum cabling design for the actuators, cameras and the Deformable Mirror. This design has been implemented at the vacuum chamber facility at Lockheed Martin (LM), which is based on successful technology development at the Ames Coronagraph Experiment (ACE) facility.

The Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) Extreme Adaptive Optics Coronagraph (ExAOC) possesses a non-redundant mask (NRM) mode that is enabled by placing a 10-hole mask in the plane of the apodizer. GPI uses an integral field spectrograph (IFS) operating at Y, J, H, and K. The raw IFS data images are assembled into spectral data cubes by the data pipeline according to the most recent wavelength solution. Accurate knowledge of the wavelength of each slice of data in this hyperspectral cube is essential. On GPI, NRM will be used to probe planet- forming regions and enable the discovery of young companions at separations smaller than what is achievable using the standard coronagraphic mode. We show that NRM data can also provide a reliable independent and precise check on the assumed wavelength calibration of the cubes. This data also provides a reliable measure of pupil geometry, which can feed advanced coronagraphic data analysis techniques. We present a wavelength calibration procedure using images from GPI during its integration and tests. We demonstrate improvements of the instrument and data pipeline between September 2012 and July 2013, comparing integration and test data taken in each of these dates. We additionally report on the first measured closure phases calculated with GPI's NRM using two different methods, a Fourier-plane approach and an image-plane approach. The performance of NRM during integration and test is indicative of the contrast it will achieve on sky.

The detection of extrasolar planets, using both space- and ground-based telescopes, is one of the most exciting fields in astronomy today, with the ultimate goal of the direct direction of earth-like planets in the habitable zone. It is with this vision that the explorer mission EXCEDE selected by NASA for technology development, is designed. EXCEDE (Exoplanetary Circumstellar Environment and Disk Explorer) is composed of a 0.7 m telescope equipped with a Phase-Induced Amplitude Apodization Coronagraph (PIAA-C) and a 2000-element MEMS deformable mirror, capable of raw contrasts of 10-6 at 1.2 λ/D and 10-7 above 2 λ/D. Obtaining these contrasts requires precise wavefront control algorithms used in conjuncture with deformable mirrors. Unlike other optical systems, where the goal is to obtain the best wavefront, we aim at canceling the diffracted light coming from the parent star in a specific region to increase signal-to-noise of the planet. To do so, we use wavefront control techniques, such as Electric Field Conjugation (EFC) and speckle nulling, already developed and soon to be operational on 8-m class telescopes. One caveat is that the demonstration was done at moderate separations (r> 3λ/D).In this paper, we present tricks and techniques to perform high-contrast imaging at 1.2 λ/d using the NASA Ames Coronagraph Experiment testbed.

Coronagraph technology is advancing and promises to enable space telescopes capable of directly detecting low surface brightness circumstellar debris disks as well as giant planets as close as in the habitable zones of their host stars. One mission capable of doing this is called EXCEDE (EXoplanetary Circumstellar Environments and Disk Explorer), which in 2011 was selected by NASA's Explorer program for technology development (Category III). EXCEDE is a 0.7m space telescope concept designed to achieve raw contrasts of 10 -6 at an inner working angle of 1.2 λ/D and 10 -7 at 2 λ/D and beyond. In addition to doing fundamental science on debris disks, EXCEDE will also serve as a technological and scientific precursor for an exo-Earth imaging mission. EXCEDE uses a Starlight Suppression System (SSS) based on the Phase Induced Amplitude Apodization (PIAA) coronagraph to provide high throughput and high contrast close to the diffraction limit, enabling aggressive performance. We report on our continuing progress of developing the SSS for EXCEDE, including (a) high contrast performance demonstrations at 1.2 λD, which includes a lab demonstration of 2x10 -7 median contrast between 1.2 and 2.0 λ/D simultaneously with 6.5x10 -8 median contrast between 2 and 4 λ/D in monochromatic light at 655nm, meeting a major milestone in our technology development program; (b) the installation of a new Low Order Wavefront Sensor (LOWFS) which enabled achieving deep contrasts at aggressive inner working angles; (c) implementation of more efficient model-based wavefront control algorithms; and (d) a preliminary broadband contrast result of 6x10 -6 contrast at 1.2 λ/D in a 10% band.

The Gemini Planet Imager is a next-generation instrument for the direct detection and characterization of young warm exoplanets, designed to be an order of magnitude more sensitive than existing facilities. It combines a 1700-actuator adaptive optics system, an apodized-pupil Lyot coronagraph, a precision interferometric infrared wavefront sensor, and a integral field spectrograph. All hardware and software subsystems are now complete and undergoing integration and test at UC Santa Cruz. We will present test results on each subsystem and the results of end-to-end testing. In laboratory testing, GPI has achieved a raw contrast (without post-processing) of 10-6 5σ at 0.4”, and with multiwavelength speckle suppression, 2x10-7 at the same separation.

We report on preliminary results from laboratory calibration of the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) polarimetry mode. Utilizing a linear polarizer and a quarterwave plate in a telescope simulator testbed, we inject a set of 15 Stokes states into GPI that sample the Poincare sphere. Calibration of the known and measured Stokes parameters allows us to determine the Mueller matrix of the instrument, from which we find that crosstalk from Stokes I to (Q,U) is < 1.5%. This is well within the acceptance test plan requirement that instrumental linear polarization be. However, instrumental circular polarization is 15%. Further testing is needed to identify the source of the significant circular polarization in the system to mitigate its effect on data quality. We find the instrument is sensitive enough to identify stress birefringence of the last lens in the telescope simulator testbed, and we measure it to have a retardance of 0.030 waves.

We evaluate the performance of existing wavefront sensing and control techniques, including speckle nulling and electric field conjugation, and discuss their applicability to high-contrast imaging spectrographs such as the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI). These techniques can be highly useful in correcting system phase errors, and can potentially improve instrument operating efficiency by working in conjunction with the dedicated adaptive optics (AO) wavefront sensor. We discuss the specifics of our implementation of speckle suppression for GPI and present lab demonstrations with average contrast improvements from 5.7x10-6 to 1.03x10-6. © (2012) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.

In this paper we report on the preliminary design of DAVINCI, the first light science instrument for the W. M. Keck Observatory's Next Generation Adaptive Optics facility. DAVINCI will provide imaging and coronagraphy at the diffraction limit from 0.7 μm to 2.4 μm over a field of ~30", and integral field spectroscopy with three sampling scales (10, 35, and 50 mas) and a field of view of 5.6" x 3" for the largest (50 mas) sampling scale. The science requirements for DAVINCI are discussed, followed by an examination of the challenges of designing the instrument within a strict limit on overall cost. The instrument's optical design and opto-mechanical configuration is described as well as the current performance predictions for the instrument.

High contrast imaging is an ongoing theme in the domain of astronomy, both for ground-based and space-based telescopes. Achieving 106 - 107 contrasts expected with GPI and SPHERE or 1010 contrast for space projects, requires extreme wavefront correction as well as good coronagraphic systems. With the testbed located at the Laboratory of Adaptive Optics in Santa Cruz, we statically correct the wavefront to 0.5 nm in band and reach contrast of a few 107 with an Apodized Lyot Coronagraph (APLC). The Electric Field Conjugation (EFC) allows us to further improve on this performance. EFC is a formalism of the correction problem that computes the actuator commands for the deformable mirror (DM) to correct for both amplitude and phase in a pre-defined region in the final image plane. In order to take into account non-common-path errors and potential amplitude aberrations, the proper actuator commands are computed using an image plane-based DM diversity by means of reconstructing the complex electric field. Already successfully tested for space-based telescopes, we here attempt to adapt this method to ground-based observations, using the EFC high contrast solution to record new reference centroids for a Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor, which in turn can be used to recreate the far-field image. This paper shows results of this first use of the EFC method with an APLC. We achieved 4.108 contrast on a [4-9] λ/d square region. We also show that it can be applied to ground based adaptive optics, using Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensors.

High-contrast adaptive optics systems, such as those needed to image extrasolar planets, are known to require excellent wavefront control and diffraction suppression. The Laboratory for Adaptive Optics at UC Santa Cruz is investigating limits to high-contrast imaging in support of the Gemini Planet Imager. Previous contrast measurements were made with a simple single-opening prolate spheroid shaped pupil that produced a limited region of high-contrast, particularly when wavefront errors were corrected with the 1024-actuator Boston Micromachines MEMS deformable mirror currently in use on the testbed. A more sophisticated shaped pupil is now being used that has a much larger region of interest facilitating a better understanding of high-contrast measurements. In particular we examine the effect of heat sources in the testbed on PSF stability. We find that rms image motion scales as 0.02 l/D per watt when the heat source is near the pupil plane. As a result heat sources of greater than 5 watts should be avoided near pupil planes for GPI. The safest place to introduce heat is near a focal plane. Heat also can effect the standard deviation of the high-contrast region but in the final instrument other sources of error should be more significant.

We present testbed results of the Apodized Pupil Lyot Coronagraph (APLC) at the Laboratory for Adaptive Optics (LAO). This coronagraph is being built for the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI). The apodizer component is manufactured with a halftone technique using black chrome microdots on glass. Testing this APLC (like any other coronagraph) requires extremely good wavefront correction, which is obtained to the 1nm RMS level on the Extreme Adaptive Optics (ExAO) visible testbed of the Laboratory Adaptive optics (LAO) at the University of Santa Cruz. With this testbed, we investigated the performance of the APLC coronagraph and more particularly the effect of the apodizer profile accuracy on the contrast. We obtained the first image of a dark zone in a coronagraphic image with a MEMS deformable mirror. Finally, we compare the resulting contrast to predictions made with a wavefront propagation model of the testbed to understand the effects of phase and amplitude errors on the final contrast.

Astronomical adaptive optics (AO) systems are beginning to make extensive use of ~598 nm lasers projected onto the mesospheric sodium layer in order create artificial guide stars. This technique allows increased sky coverage with improved AO system performance. This approach is also dependent on the abundance and distribution of sodium atoms in the mesosphere and as a result present a unique set of difficulties not seen with natural stars. The sodium layer exhibits time dependent variations in density and altitude, and has a variable structure. The non-zero thickness and finite range of the sodium layer results in elongation of the LGS image due to perspective effects that are particularly significant for AO systems using Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensors (SHFWS) on extremely large telescopes (ELTs) such as the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). Both sodium layer variations and elongation will increase the error in the wavefront measurement. In order to understand these effects we have collected profiles of the sodium layer using off axis observations of a laser guide star at the Lick Observatory. In this paper, we will describe the analysis of these profiles and the implications of this analysis for the design of improved wavefront sensors (especially sampling, field of view) and SHWFS centroiding methods.

Micro-electrical-mechanical-systems (MEMS) deformable mirrors (DMs) are under study at the Laboratory for Adaptive Optics for inclusion in possible future adaptive optics systems, including open loop or extreme adaptive optics (ExAO) systems. MEMS DMs have several advantages in these areas because of low (to zero) hysterisis and high actuator counts. In this paper, we present work in the area of high-contrast adaptive optics systems, such as those needed to image extrasolar planets. These are known to require excellent wavefront control and diffraction suppression. On the ExAO testbed we have already demonstrated wavefront control of better than 1 nm rms within controllable spatial frequencies, however, corresponding contrast measurements are limited by amplitude variations, including variations introduced by the MEMS. Results from experimental measurements and wave optic simulations on the ExAO testbed will be presented. In particular the effect of small scale MEMS structures on amplitude variations and ultimately high-contrast far field measurements will be examined. Experimental results include interferometer measurements of phase and amplitude using the phase shifting diffraction interferometer, direct imaging of the pupil, and far-field imaging.

High-contrast adaptive optics systems, such as those needed to image extrasolar planets, are known to require excellent wavefront control and diffraction suppression. At the Laboratory for Adaptive Optics on the Extreme Adaptive Optics testbed, we have already demonstrated wavefront control of better than 1 nm rms within controllable spatial frequencies. Corresponding contrast measurements, however, are limited by amplitude variations, including those introduced by the micro-electrical-mechanical-systems (MEMS) deformable mirror. Results from experimental measurements and wave optic simulations of amplitude variations on the ExAO testbed are presented. We find systematic intensity variations of about 2% rms, and intensity variations with the MEMS to be 6%. Some errors are introduced by phase and amplitude mixing because the MEMS is not conjugate to the pupil, but independent measurements of MEMS reflectivity suggest that some error is introduced by small non-uniformities in the reflectivity.