Sensing Quasi-Static Aberrations of Adaptive Optics Systems On-Line with Long-Exposure Phase Diversity

We validate by simulations an extension of the phase diversity technique that uses long exposure adaptive optics corrected images for sensing quasi-static aberrations during the scientific observation, in particul ar for high-contrast imaging. The principle of the method is that, for a sufficiently long exposure time, the residual turbulence is averaged into a convolutive component of the image and that phase diversity estimates the sole static aberrations of interest. The advantages of such a pro cedure, compared to the processing of short- exposure image pairs, are that the separation between static aberrat ions and turbulence-induced ones is performed by the long-exposure itself and not numerically, that only one image pair must be processed, that the estimation benefits from the high SNR of long-exposure images, and that only the static aberrations of interest are to be estimated. Long-exposure phase diversity can also be used as a phasing sensor for a segmented aperture telescope. Thus, it may be particularly useful for future planet finder projects such as EPICS on the European ELT