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Status of MagAO and review of astronomical science with visible light adaptive optics
We review astronomical results in the visible (lambda <1 micron) with
adaptive optics and note the status the MagAO system and the recent upgrade to
visible camera's Simultaneous/Spectra Differential Imager (SDI to SDI+) mode.
Since mid-2013 there has been a rapid increase visible AO with over 50 refereed
science papers published in just 2015-2016 timeframe. The main focus of this
paper is another large (D=6.5m Magellan telescope) AO system (MagAO) which has
been very productive in the visible (particularly at the H-alpha emission
line). MagAO is an advanced Adaptive Secondary Mirror (ASM) AO system at the
Magellan in Chile. This ASM secondary has 585 actuators with <1 msec response
times (0.7 ms typically). MagAO utilizes a 1 kHz pyramid wavefront sensor
(PWFS). The relatively small actuator pitch (~22 cm/subap, 300 modes, upgraded
to 30 pix dia. PWFS) allows moderate Strehls to be obtained in the visible
(0.63-1.05 microns). Long exposures (60s) achieve <30mas resolutions and 30%
Strehls at 0.62 microns (r') with the VisAO camera (0.5-1.0 microns) in 0.5"
seeing with bright R < 9 mag stars (~10% Strehls can be obtained on fainter
R~12 mag guide stars). Differential Spectral Imaging (SDI) at H-alpha has been
very important for accreting exoplanet detection. There is also a 1-5micron
science camera (Clio; Morzinski et al. 2016). These capabilities have led to
over 35 MagAO refereed science publications. Here we review the key steps to
having good performance in the visible and review the exciting new AO visible
science opportunities and science results. The recent rapid increase in the
scientific publications and power of visible AO is due to the maturity of the
next-generation of AO systems and our new ability probe circumstellar regions
with very high (10-30 mas) spatial resolutions that would otherwise require
much larger (>10m) diameter telescopes in the infrared.Comment: 18 pages, Proc. SPIE 10703, Adaptive Optics IV, June 2018 Austin TX.
arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1407.509