activity
20242026
collaborators

6 papers

astro-ph.IM2026

Initial modeling and testbed feasibility studies of WaveDriver: a laser guide star AO system for HWO

Dominic F. Sanchez, Benjamin L. Gerard, Peter Waswa +16

The Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) will require greater wavefront stability than achieved by JWST, pushing conventional telescope architectures to picometer-level…

astro-ph.IM2026

On-sky results from REDWOODS, a platform at Lick/ShaneAO for testing second stage AO technologies

Benjamin L. Gerard, Dominic F. Sanchez, Aditya R. Sengupta +11

REDWOODS is a new sub-testbed within the Shane Adaptive Optics (AO) system at Lick observatory, developed to test second stage AO wavefront sensing and control technologies, includ…

astro-ph.IM2026

WaveDriver: a Laser Guide Star AO System for HWO

Benjamin L. Gerard, Alex Geringer-Sameth, Aditya R. Sengupta +7

Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) presents a key challenge for technology development in the coming years, requiring a more stable system than \textit{JWST}. WaveD…

astro-ph.IM2026

Control algorithms for dual-wavefront sensor single-conjugate adaptive optics

Aditya R. Sengupta, Lisa A. Poyneer, Benjamin L. Gerard +2

High-contrast imaging systems using active control with adaptive optics (AO) are often limited by non-common path (NCP) aberrations that are seen only at the final science image. A…

astro-ph.IM2025

WaveDriver: a Laser Guide Star AO System for HWO

Benjamin L. Gerard, Alex Geringer-Sameth, Aditya R. Sengupta +16

HWO's Tier 1 Contrast Stability Technology Gap presents a key challenge for technology development in the coming years, requiring to a >100x more stable system than JWST. WaveDrive…

astro-ph.IM2024

The Focal-plane Actualized Shifted Technique Realized for a Shack Hartmann Wavefront Sensor (fastrSHWFS)

Benjamin L. Gerard, Aaron Lemmer, Bautista R. Fernandez +6

Astronomical adaptive optics (AO) is a critical approach to enable ground-based diffraction-limited imaging and high contrast science, with the potential to enable habitable exopla…