[ASA] VLT visible MCAO science workshop, November 27, Stromlo

[Francois Rigaut]

Dear colleagues,

In the past couple of years, ESO has been looking at the opportunity and the possibility of building 3rd generation VLT instrumentation. This has focused on the new UT4 Adaptive Optics facility. A visible Multi-Conjugate AO system seems to be of particular relevance and interest, as prioritised by ESO and the ESO STC. There will be a call for Phase A sometime next year. A consortium is forming to answer this call, including institutes like INAF Arcetri (Italy, Simone Esposito and team), INAF Padova (Italy, Roberto Ragazzoni and team), Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille (France, Benoit Neichel, Thierry Fusco and team), and in Australia, AAO and RSAA ANU. All signals are that Australia is in a good position to take the leadership of this development.

In a few words, taking advantage of the existing UT4 Adaptive Optics Facility infrastructure (essentially, the lasers and the deformable secondary mirror), this VLT instrument would deliver 0.015” FWHM images over a field of view of 30" to an imager and, possibly, to a fibre-based MOS and/or an IFU. At least that is the current thinking, to be driven/modified by the science. Current performance targets Strehl ratio of about 30% at 500nm. Preliminary simulations show that, on unresolved sources, this instrument on the VLT would lead to SNR 2 to 5x that of the HST, and 3x the angular resolution.

We are currently in the interesting and exciting period in which we have to define the science and, consequently, the instrument capability and early design. A workshop to discuss the science that could be enabled by this instrument will be held at ANU RSAA (Stromlo) on Monday, 27 November. Geraint Lewis, Karl Glazebrook, Sarah Martell, Chris Lidman, Michele Trenti, Richard McDermid and Stuart Ryder have accepted to animate discussions related to how their science area could benefit from this facility. Everybody is encouraged to participate in these discussions and shape this instrument design.

We are planning to start late and finished early-ish in the day for people flying in or out (and have a short break for a catered lunch). The agenda for the meeting is:

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VLT Visible MCAO science workshop, RSAA, Monday 27 November

09:50AM - 10:00AM Welcome

10:00AM - 11:00AM AO and post-focal instrumentation straw man description
                  (Francois Rigaut and Jon Lawrence)

11:00AM - 04:00PM (with a few breaks for coffee and catered lunch).
                  Presentation of various possible science cases + discussions
                  with people mentioned in email text above.

04:00PM           Adjourn
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Any question please contact Francois Rigaut or Jon Lawrence (emails in the header).

Please let us know if you are coming so that we can arrange catering.
Sorry for the short notice. We hope to see you there !

Francois and Jon.

Associate Prof. Francois Rigaut               francois.rigaut at anu.edu.au<mailto:francois.rigaut at anu.edu.au>
Adaptive Optics Principal Scientist           www.rsaa.anu.edu.au<http://www.rsaa.anu.edu.au/>
Research School of Astronomy & Astrophysics   Telephone: +61-2-6125-0210
The Australian National University            Mobile:    +61-499-680-000

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