UK Programme for the European Extremely Large Telescope - Additional Support FY14-15 and Interim Funding FY15-16

Lead Research Organisation: Durham University
Department Name: Physics

Abstract

Included in the "UK Programme for the European Extremely Large Telescope", Cunningham et al 7 May 2014. (attached)


This proposal for additional support is for additional work at Durham in FY14/15 and interim funding for work in the first half of FY15/16 on the following E-ELT instrument development, as detailed in "EELT Interim Funding 20141002" (Colin Cunningham) and approved by the E-ELT Steering Committee. In summary this is:

CANARY
FY14/15 additional work
- Support for C1/2 on-sky runs
- Data Analysis
- Sodium LGS
- Turbulence profiling
- Neural Network Tomography
- Near IR APD system
FY15/16 Interim Funding
- In accordance with Case for Support


Real Time Control (RTC)
FY14/15 additional
- RTC development support
- Hardware acceleration technology investigations
- Real-time simulation development
- Simulation-RTC interfacing
- Simulation modelling support for E-ELT AO
- RTC configuration support for E-ELT
FY15/16 Interim Funding
- In accordance with Case for Support


MOS
FY14/15 additional work
- K band fibres
- Adaptive Optics
- Instrument Core (ICOS) engineering lead
15/16 Interim Funding
- In accordance with the Case for Support

HIRES
FY14/15 additional work
- Adaptive Optics Engineering
- Fibre development
-Coupling, Connectorisation
FY15/16 Interim Funding
- In accordance with the Case for Support

Planned Impact

Included in the "Pathways to Impact - UK Programme for the European Extremely Large Telescope". (attached)

Publications

10 25 50
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Barr D (2015) Reducing adaptive optics latency using Xeon Phi many-core processors in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Basden A (2015) Investigation of POWER8 processors for astronomical adaptive optics real-time control in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Basden A (2015) Monte Carlo modelling of multiconjugate adaptive optics performance on the European Extremely Large Telescope in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Basden A (2015) Analysis of electron multiplying charge coupled device and scientific CMOS readout noise models for Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor accuracy in Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments, and Systems

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Basden A (2015) Sensitivity improvements for Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensors using total variation minimization in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Bitenc U (2015) On-sky tests of the CuReD and HWR fast wavefront reconstruction algorithms with CANARY in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Harris R (2015) Photonic spatial reformatting of stellar light for diffraction-limited spectroscopy in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Jia P (2018) Modelling synthetic atmospheric turbulence profiles with temporal variation using Gaussian mixture model in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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MacLachlan D (2017) Efficient photonic reformatting of celestial light for diffraction-limited spectroscopy in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Sinquin B (2020) On-sky results for adaptive optics control with data-driven models on low-order modes in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

 
Description EU Horizon 2020 program under the FETHPC-1 topic of the FET-Proactive call for 3 years from 1-October-2015.
Amount £689,197 (GBP)
Funding ID 671662 
Organisation European Commission 
Department Horizon 2020
Sector Public
Country European Union (EU)
Start 10/2015 
End 09/2018
 
Description European Space Agency TRP
Amount £283,554 (GBP)
Funding ID TEC-MMO/2014/127 
Organisation ESA - ESTEC 
Sector Public
Country Netherlands
Start 03/2015 
End 05/2018
 
Title SCIDAR at the ING 
Description A high-vertical resolution optical turbulence profiler was developed and installed on the 2.5m Isaac Newton Telescope. Observations made in support of the CANARY instrument were used to create a database of turbulence profiles that are of sufficient vertical resolution to design and characterise instruments for the future set of extremely large telescopes. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2015 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact The Thirty Metre Telescope project used the database of atmospheric profiles measured using the SCIDAR instrument to select La Palma as the backup operating site for the major US astronomical facilty. 
 
Title Sodium Profiling at the INT 
Description The mesosphere contains a layer of sodium atoms that are excited by a laser to provide a wavefront reference for the adaptive optics systems. The density and distribution on the sodium profile varies with time and to date, the only high-vertical resolution profiles available to the communtiy were measured in Northern Canada. As this distribution of sodium atoms can be affected by latitude, measurment of the sodium profiles at high vertical and temporal (~0.1-1s) resoultion from alternative location, such as La Palma is essential. A high resolution vertical profiler was installed at the INT telescope in La Palma and an initial data release and analysis code is being prepared. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Provided To Others? No  
Impact Profiles from the original 6 nights of measurements are being released, but additional measurements that will be made during upcoming observing runs will provide a statistically representatve dataset compared to existing profile data from Canada.