Temporal Variability and Statistics of the Strehl Ratio in Adaptive-Optics Images

Abstract

We have investigated the temporal variability and statistics of the "instantaneous" Strehl ratio. The observations were carried out with the 3.63-m AEOS telescope equipped with a high-order adaptive optics system. In this paper Strehl ratio is defined as the peak intensity of a single short exposure. We have also studied the behaviour of the phase variance computed on the reconstructed wavefronts. We tested the Marechal approximation and used it to explain the observed negative skewness of the Strehl ratio distribution. The estimate of the phase variance is shown to fit a three-parameter Gamma distribution model. We show that simple scaling of the reconstructed wavefronts has a large impact on the shape of the Strehl ratio distribution.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 2010
Accession Number
ADA530548

Entities

People

  • Julian C. Christou
  • L. W. Bradford
  • Lewis C. Roberts Jr.
  • Szymon Gladysz

Organizations

  • National Science Foundation

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Adaptive Optics
  • Data Analysis
  • Data Science
  • Focal Planes
  • Goodness Of Fit Tests
  • Information Science
  • Intensity
  • Observation
  • Optics
  • Physics
  • Random Variables
  • Skewness
  • Standards
  • Statistical Analysis
  • Statistics
  • Strehl Ratio
  • Wavefronts

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Approximation Theory.
  • Image Processing and Computer Vision.
  • Mechanical Engineering/Mechanics of Materials.

Technology Areas

  • Space
  • Space - Space Objects