发表机构
University of Notre Dame; Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie（圣母大学; 马克斯·普朗克天文学研究所）
机构由 AI 辅助整理，请以论文原文为准。AI 中文总结
本研究比较了非线性曲率波前传感器与夏克-哈特曼传感器在强湍流下的性能，发现前者在弱至中等闪烁下更优，但在强闪烁下因分支点而退化，需开发容忍分支点的算法。
AI 中文摘要
强湍流会引起光束强度的空间变化，这会阻碍许多常用自适应光学（AO）系统中基于梯度的波前传感器（WFS）的重建过程，例如夏克-哈特曼波前传感器（SHWFS）和金字塔波前传感器。非线性曲率波前传感器（nlCWFS）利用菲涅耳衍射提取波前相位和振幅信息，这表明它可能能够在具有挑战性的湍流条件下工作。在本工作中，我们通过模拟高球面波Rytov数（$R_{sw}$）环境（其中闪烁和分支点影响传感性能），研究了nlCWFS重建精度随湍流强度和相对通量的变化。我们展示了开环以及静态和动态闭环结果，并与可比较的夏克-哈特曼波前传感器（SHWFS）进行了基准比较。在静态和弱到中等闪烁区域，nlCWFS通过利用基于梯度的传感器无法获得的振幅-相位耦合，始终优于SHWFS。然而，动态闭环模拟揭示了在较高闪烁强度下的交叉行为，其中深度强度零点和增殖的分支点降低了基于Gerchberg-Saxton的nlCWFS重建性能，而SHWFS由于其对此类拓扑相位结构不敏感而退化得更缓慢。这些结果突出了nlCWFS随区域变化的优势，并强调需要容忍分支点的重建算法，以在强湍流、低通量条件下充分发挥其潜力。
英文摘要
Strong turbulence induces spatial variations in beam intensity that hinder the reconstruction process of many commonly deployed adaptive optics (AO) systems that use gradient-based wavefront sensors (WFS), such as the Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor (SHWFS) and pyramid wavefront sensor. The nonlinear curvature WFS (nlCWFS) uses Fresnel diffraction to extract wavefront phase and amplitude information, suggesting that it may be able to operate under challenging turbulence conditions. In this work, we investigate nlCWFS reconstruction accuracy as a function of turbulence strength and relative flux by modeling high spherical-wave Rytov number ($R_{sw}$) environments where scintillation and branch points impact sensing performance. We present open-loop as well as static and dynamic closed-loop results benchmarked against a comparable Shack-Hartmann WFS (SHWFS). In static and weak-to-moderate scintillation regimes, the nlCWFS consistently outperforms the SHWFS by leveraging amplitude-phase coupling inaccessible to gradient-based sensors. However, dynamic closed-loop simulations reveal a crossover behavior at higher scintillation strengths, where deep intensity nulls and proliferating branch points degrade the performance of Gerchberg-Saxton-based nlCWFS reconstruction, while the SHWFS degrades more gradually due to its insensitivity to such topological phase structure. These results highlight the regime-dependent advantages of the nlCWFS and emphasize the need for branch-point-tolerant reconstruction algorithms to fully realize its potential in strong-turbulence, low-flux conditions.
Comments22 pages, 18 figures
Journal refSam J. Potier, Arlene J. Aleman, Justin R. Crepp, et al. "Performance comparison of the nonlinear curvature and Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensors in strong turbulence," Optical Engineering 65(8), 081823 (6 Aug 2026)
