Design and development of Compact Adaptive Optics Instrumentation for Extreme Precision Radial Velocity

Adaptive optics systems have played a key role in the direct detection of exoplanets. These instruments have sharpened the image of exoplanet systems by correcting the turbulence due to Earth’s atmosphere – thus enabling starlight suppression and the detection of faint, nearby companions. However, these systems can also enable improvements in indirect methods of planet detection as well. Specifically, adaptive optics can advance radial velocity methods also. This is because adaptive optics systems can dramatically improve the light that gets coupled into single-mode fiber-fed radial velocity spectrographs. The dramatic increase in stability of the resulting image on the final focal plane mitigates optical errors that would make extraction of the radial velocity signature difficult. Here we describe the architecture of a compact adaptive optics system that is designed specifically to couple light into a single-mode optical fiber. The dramatic reduction in size of this instrument is afforded by the reduction in pupil size by MEMs deformable mirrors. Our system also enables fast tip/tilt control as well as atmospheric dispersion correction – necessary for extended sky coverage. The heritage and architecture of this instrument will be described. We will also cover performance modeling, and status of the hardware and software build. We will describe our plans to couple AO systems with spectrometers to enable dramatically increased stability with implications for extreme precision radial velocity needed for the detection of exoEarths.