Horizontal sodium density variations for laser guide star tip-tilt measurements

Abstract

ABSTRACT Adaptive optics, particularly with laser guide stars, has revolutionized ground-based astronomy. However, one known limitation is the requirement of a natural guide star to retrieve tip-tilt information. This is the limiting factor in the overall achievable sky coverage with adaptive optics systems as natural guide stars are not available for all science targets. There have been numerous different techniques proposed to overcome this limitation; however, many are restricted by current technology. This work investigates the use of density perturbations in the sodium layer to retrieve the tip-tilt information. In this work, we identify atmospheric gravity waves as a mechanism that could cause perturbations in the sodium layer density. Archival hydroxyl airglow data was analysed to assess whether the density perturbations caused by atmospheric gravity waves are on the correct scales and have enough contrast to be used for laser guide star tip-tilt retrieval. This data showed a median contrast of 1.9 per cent for a laser guide star with a full width half-maximum of 25 arcsec. Then to determine if these perturbations would be visible with a laser guide star at a high enough signal-to-noise ratio, the Mathematica package LGSBloch was utilized. The CaNaPy laser guide star R&D facility was chosen to model as it has a state-of-the-art 70 W sodium laser. Promising results were found when modelling this method with the CaNaPy facility as a framework. This demonstrates that if these same perturbations were present in the sodium layer, sodium density variations are a potential mechanism to retrieve tip-tilt using laser guide stars.