Variance of the Strehl Ratio of an Adaptive Optics System
Abstract
The variance sigma(s)2 of the Strehl ratio of a reasonably well-corrected adaptive optics system is derived as a power series in the log-amplitude variance sigma(l)2 and the residual phase error variance. It is shown that, to leading order, the variance of the Strehl ratio is dependent on the first power of the log-amplitude variance, (sigma(l)2)1 of the incident optical field but only on the second power of the residual phase variance, (sigma(delta phi)2)2, of that field after adaptive optics correction, and on the first power of the product of the log-amplitude variance times the phase variance, (sigma(l)2sigma(delta phi)2)1. As long as the adaptive optics correction is good enough to ensure that the variance of the residual phase, sigma(delta phi)2 is significantly less than unity, then even for fairly small values of the log-amplitude variance sigma(l)2 the value of the variance of the Strehl ratio, sigma(s)2, will be dominated by the value of the log-amplitude variance.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 15, 1999
- Accession Number
- ADA361556
Entities
People
- David L. Fried
- Harold T. Yura
Organizations
- The Aerospace Corporation