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The TMT Detailed Science Case describes the transformational science that the Thirty Meter Telescope will enable. Planned to begin science operations in 2024, TMT will open up opportunities for revolutionary discoveries in essentially every field of astronomy, astrophysics and cosmology, seeing much fainter objects much more clearly than existing telescopes. Per this capability, TMT's science agenda fills all of space and time, from nearby comets and asteroids, to exoplanets, to the most distant galaxies, and all the way back to the very first sources of light in the Universe. More than 150 astronomers from within the TMT partnership and beyond offered input in compiling the new 2015 Detailed Science Case. The contributing astronomers represent the entire TMT partnership, including the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC), the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), the University of California, the Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy (ACURA) and US associate partner, the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA)., Comment: 203 pages, 10 Mb. Full resolution version available at http://www.tmt.org/science-case/

The Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) is a new facility, extreme adaptive optics (AO), coronagraphic instrument, currently being integrated onto the 8-meter Gemini South telescope, with the ultimate goal of directly imaging extrasolar planets. To achieve the contrast required for the desired science, it is necessary to quantify and mitigate wavefront error (WFE). A large source of potential static WFE arises from the primary AO wavefront sensor (WFS) detector's use of multiple readout segments with independent signal chains including on-chip preamplifiers and external amplifiers. Temperature changes within GPI's electronics cause drifts in readout segments' bias levels, inducing an RMS WFE of 1.1 nm and 41.9 nm over 4.44 degrees Celsius, for magnitude 4 and 11 stars, respectively. With a goal of $, Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures. Proceedings of the SPIE, 9148-217

We present preliminary results from high resolution (~ 0.05") adaptive optics observations of Cygnus A. The images show a bi-conic structure strongly suggestive of an obscuring torus around a quasar nucleus. A bright (K'=18.5) point source is found near the expected position of the nucleus. We interpret this source as the hot inner rim of the torus seen through the opening of the torus. Using high angular resolution K-band spectroscopy, we measure the ratio of molecular to recombination hydrogen lines as a function of distance to the center of the putative torus. These measurements place constraints on the properties of the torus and indicate a projected diameter of ~600 pc., Comment: To appear in proceeding from "Penetrating Bars through Masks of Cosmic Dust" conference in South Africa. 5 pages

We have obtained a deep, sub-arcsecond resolution X-ray image of the nuclear region of the luminous galaxy merger NGC 6240 with Chandra, which resolves the X-ray emission from the pair of active nuclei and the diffuse hot gas in great detail. We detect extended hard X-ray emission from kT~6 keV (~70 million K) hot gas over a spatial scale of 5 kpc, indicating the presence of fast shocks with velocity of ~2200 km/s. For the first time we obtain the spatial distribution of this highly ionized gas emitting FeXXV, which shows a remarkable correspondence to the large scale morphology of H_2(1-0) S(1) line emission and H\alpha filaments. Propagation of fast shocks originated in the starburst driven wind into the ambient dense gas can account for this morphological correspondence. With an observed L(0.5-8 keV)=5.3E+41 erg/s, the diffuse hard X-ray emission is 100 times more luminous than that observed in the classic starburst galaxy M82. Assuming a filling factor of 1% for the 70 MK temperature gas, we estimate its total mass (M_{hot}=1.8E+8 Msun) and thermal energy (E_{th}=6.5E+57 ergs). The total iron mass in the highly ionized plasma is M_{Fe}=4.6E+5 Msun. Both the energetics and the iron mass in the hot gas are consistent with the expected injection from the supernovae explosion during the starburst that is commensurate with its high star formation rate. No evidence for fluorescent Fe I emission is found in the CO filament connecting the two nuclei., Comment: Accepted to ApJ. 37 pages, 13 figures. Figures 5 and 6 are rotated for better visualization in print

CAMERA is an autonomous laser guide star adaptive optics system designed for small aperture telescopes. This system is intended to be mounted permanently on such a telescope to provide large amounts of flexibly scheduled observing time, delivering high angular resolution imagery in the visible and near infrared. The design employs a Shack Hartmann wavefront sensor, a 12x12 actuator MEMS device for high order wavefront compensation, and a solid state 355nm ND:YAG laser to generate a guide star. Commercial CCD and InGaAs detectors provide coverage in the visible and near infrared. CAMERA operates by selecting targets from a queue populated by users and executing these observations autonomously. This robotic system is targeted towards applications that are diffcult to address using classical observing strategies: surveys of very large target lists, recurrently scheduled observations, and rapid response followup of transient objects. This system has been designed and costed, and a lab testbed has been developed to evaluate key components and validate autonomous operations.

The Narrow Field Infrared Adaptive Optics System (NFIRAOS) is the first light Laser Guide Star (LGS) Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics (MCAO) system for TMT. NFIRAOS needs to correct 2-axis tip/tilt jitter disturbances, including both telescope vibration and atmospheric tip/tilt, to a residual of 2 milli-arcsecond (mas) RMS with 50% sky coverage at the Galactic pole. NFIRAOS will utilize multiple infrared tip/tilt sensors, as sky coverage benefits greatly from wavefront sensing in the near IR where guide star densities are greater and the NFIRAOS AO system "sharpens" the guide star images. NFIRAOS will also utilize type II woofer-tweeter control to correct tip/tilt jitter. High amplitude, low bandwidth errors are corrected by a tip/tilt platform (woofer), whereas the low amplitude, high bandwidth disturbances are corrected by the deformable mirrors. A prototype development effort for the relatively large, massive DM tip/tilt stage is now underway. Detailed Monte Carlo simulations of the complete architecture indicate that the sky coverage and tip/tilt control requirement for NFIRAOS can be met, with some margin available for stronger input disturbances or shortfalls in component performance.

The Next Generation Adaptive Optics (NGAO) system will represent a considerable advancement for high resolution astronomical imaging and spectroscopy at the W. M. Keck Observatory. The AO system will incorporate multiple laser guidestar tomography to increase the corrected field of view and remove the cone effect inherent to single laser guide star systems. The improvement will permit higher Strehl correction in the near-infrared and diffraction-limited correction down to R band. A high actuator count micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) deformable mirror will provide the on-axis wavefront correction to a number of instrument stations and additional MEMS devices will feed multiple channels of a deployable integral-field spectrograph. In this paper we present the status of the AO system design and describe its various operating modes.

A laser guide star (LGS) adaptive optics (AO) system generally requires additional tip/tilt information derived using a natural guide star (NGS), while multi-LGS systems will benefit from measurement of additional low-order wavefront modes using one or more NGS's. If we use AO sharpened NGS's, we can improve both the measurement accuracy and accessible sky fraction while also minimizing the observational overhead of faint NGS acquisition. Multi-object adaptive optics (MOAO) sharpening of NGS is possible where a good estimate of the NGS wavefront can be made, for example where tomographic wavefront information is available. We describe a new approach for high Strehl ratio sharpening, based on additional patrolling laser beacons, to eliminate generalized anisoplanatism and minimize tomography error in the NGS direction.

The Moderate Order Radial (MOR) Truth Wavefront Sensor (TWFS) of NFIRAOS, the facility AO system for TMT, is a visible light order 12x12 subaperture Shack-Hartmann WFS. Its role is to sense radial wavefront errors arising from variations in the Sodium layer profile that are not sensed by the on-instrument near infrared tip-tilt focus wavefront sensor at a sampling frequency on the order of one Herz. It works in concert with the High Order Low bandwidth (HOL) TWFS, which will use a 120x120 subaperture Shack-Hartmann WFS that senses slow variations in telescope flexure and the rotation of the pupil. Top-level requirements for NFIRAOS leave little margin for degradation in sky coverage or additional implementation wavefront errors introduced by the operation of the MOR TWFS. In this paper, we explore MOR TWFS design trade studies on the number of subapertures, sampling rate, the width of the MOR TWFS visible bandpass, and the split in light between the MOR and HOL TWFS, and present a design for a system which meets the top level requirements by not degrading the high sky coverage of NFIRAOS (50% sky coverage at the Galactic poles) and rejecting the radial modes with a residual wavefront error of 10nm.

Atmospheric turbulence compensation via adaptive optics (AO) will be essential for achieving most objectives of the TMT science case. The performance requirements for the initial implementation of the observatory's facility AO system include diffraction-limited performance in the near IR with 50 per cent sky coverage at the galactic pole. This capability will be achieved via an order 60x60 multi-conjugate AO system (NFIRAOS) with two deformable mirrors optically conjugate to ranges of 0 and 12 km, six high-order wavefront sensors observing laser guide stars in the mesospheric sodium layer, and up to three low-order, IR, natural guide star wavefront sensors located within each client instrument. The associated laser guide star facility (LGSF) will consist of 3 50W class, solid state, sum frequency lasers, conventional beam transport optics, and a launch telescope located behind the TMT secondary mirror. In this paper, we report on the progress made in designing, modeling, and validating these systems and their components over the last two years. This includes work on the overall layout and detailed opto-mechanical designs of NFIRAOS and the LGSF; reliable wavefront sensing methods for use with elongated and time-varying sodium laser guide stars; developing and validating a robust tip/tilt control architecture and its components; computationally efficient algorithms for very high order wavefront control; detailed AO system modeling and performance optimization incorporating all of these effects; and a range of supporting lab/field tests and component prototyping activities at TMT partners. Further details may be found in the additional papers on each of the above topics.

A multi-laser adaptive optics system, at the 6.5 m MMT telescope, has been undergoing commissioning in preparation for wide-field, partially corrected as well as narrow-field, diffraction limited science observations in the thermal and near infrared. After several delays due to bad weather, we have successfully closed the full high order ground-layer adaptive optics (GLAO) control loop for the first time in February 2008 using five Rayleigh laser guide stars and a single tilt star. Characterization and automated correction of static aberrations such as non-common path errors were addressed in May 2008. Calibration measurements in preparation for laser tomography adaptive optics (LTAO) operation are planned for the fall of 2008 along with the start of shared-risk GLAO science observations. We present the results of GLAO observations with the PISCES imager, a 1 - 2.5 µm camera with a field of view of 110 arc seconds. The status of the remaining GLAO commissioning work is also reviewed. Finally, we present plans for commissioning work to implement the LTAO operating mode of the system.