Workshop on Quantitative Astronomical AO Science

Date and Venue

This workshop is part of the CfAO spring retreat in Santa Cruz, and will take place on Monday PM -Tuesday AM - March 26-27.

We would like to encourage the workshop participants to stay at least till Wednesday evening. There will be a plenary session to report on recent progresses made in the various CfAO^? Themes on Tuesday afternoon; as well as an open Keck Next Generation AO science session all-day Wednesday.

Goals for the Workshop

The goals for the workshop are:

• Understand the current challenges that the AO astronomers are facing
• Create initiatives to work on these areas, applicable either to the current AO instruments (e.g., Keck and Gemini AO) or to the design of future AO instruments (Gemini MCAO, Keck NGAO, GPI).

We want to bring together AO Users from various fields of astronomy to share their experience with extracting accurate and reliable scientific measurements from AO data.

Confirmed Participants

We are proposing to have 15min talk and 5 min for questions. If you feel like 15 min is too short for your talk, feel free to use more time and please let David know so that we can adjust the sessions.

We are particularly interested to develop group discussions and we will an opportunity for this every 3 talks (see proposed agenda below). The discussion will be led by the session chair. If you have particular questions you would like to bring up with the audience, feel free to prepare a slide for it (and let the session chair person know, if possible).

Please, tell us about your science. Also we want to encourage you to explain the challenges in your analysis, the solutions you found, other possible remedies and/or further questioning, etc.

Time Slot	Name	Presentation Title	PDF/PPT file
Monday 26 Afternoon
12:00noon	Lunch served in the CfAO? atrium for all participants
1:00pm	Introduction to Monday session - Chair: S. Wright (UCLA)
1:05pm	David Law (Caltech)	OSIRIS Observations of High Redshift Galaxies: Technique and Preliminary Science Results	ppt
1:25pm	Lynne Raschke (UCSC )	Stellar Populations of IC 342: The View from AO and HST	ppt
1:45pm	Phil Marshall (UCSB)	Super-resolving distant galaxies with gravitational telescopes: Keck-LGSAO and Hubble imaging of the lens system SDSSJ0757+3216	pdf
2:05pm	Group discussion led by S. Wright: lessons learned, alternate approaches, remaining challenges, future steps, etc
2:30 - 2:45pm	Short Coffee Break
2:45pm	Tommaso Treu (UCSB)	The kinematics of Einstein Rings	pdf.gz
3:05pm	James Graham (UCB)	PSF reconstruction for AO observations crowded field stellar photometry: Application to IC 10
3:25pm	Matthew Britton (Caltech)	Estimation of the AO PSF using turbulence profile data	ppt
3:45pm	Nicholas Law (Caltech)	LAMP@Palomar: Lucky Adaptive Optics In the Visible	pdf
4:25pm	Group discussion led by S. Wright: lessons learned, alternate approaches, remaining challenges, future steps, etc
5:30pm	Ajourn + Walk along the West Cliff (between Lighthouse and Natural Bridges)
7:00pm	Dinner: we propose a dinner at Olita (~$25) at the Wharf. Beautiful view, easy place with good food (try the siete mares!). Or there are various options on Mission St. (O'mei is closed on Mondays though) Sunset at ~7:30pm
Tuesday 27 Morning
8:15-8:45am	Breakfast in the CfAO? atrium
8:55am	Introduction to Tuesday session - Chair: Michael Fitzgerald
9:00am	Franck Marchis (UCB)	Multiple Asteroids Studied with AOs	ppt
9:20am	Mate Adamkovics (UCB)	Titan science: Gleaming the OSIRIS cube	pdf
9:40am	Jim Lyke (WMKO)	OSIRIS DRP: from observations of Nova Cas 1995 to science	ppt
10:00am	Tuan Do (UCLA)	Light curve timing analysis and spectral slope analysis of Sgr A *	ppt:
10:20am	Group discussion led by M. Fitzgerald : lessons learned, alternate approaches, remaining challenges, future steps, etc
10:30 - 10:40am	Short Coffee Break
10:40am	Holly Maness (UCB)	The Dominant Population in the Central Parsec of the Galaxy: Intermediate-Age or Metal-Poor?	pdf
11:00am	Jessica Lu (UCLA)	Keck/NIRC2 Astrometry in Crowded Stellar Fields	pdf
11:20am	Brian Cameron (Caltech)	Astrometry of Magnetars and Microquasars with Keck/NIRC2
11:40am	Group discussion led by M. Fitzgerald: lessons learned, alternate approaches, remaining challenges, future steps, etc
12:00noon	Lunch served in the CfAO? atrium for all participants

Other participants: Claire Max (CfAO^?); Brent Ellerbroek (Caltech - by video); Lindsey Pollack (UCSC); Jason Prochaska (UCSC); Anne Metevier (UCSC); Shelley Wright (UCLA); David Le Mignant (CfAO^?/Keck); etc

Topics

We are particularly interested in current results on the following areas (some examples are given to illustrate the case):

• High contrast sensitivity analysis:
  • Detection limits for companions (asteroids, KBOs, LMS and BDs)
  • Photometry & color analysis methods for circumstellar material (debris disk, TTauri, AeBe^?)

• Stellar Population analysis:
  • Limit to the photometry analysis (M31 bulge)
  • Limit to the astrometry precision (GC)

• Spectroscopy analysis
  • Spatially resolved spectroscopy (high-z galaxies)
  • Knowledge of the PSF for slit-less instruments (IFU)
  • Current limits for the velocity analysis from current IFU (GC)
  • Data reduction and analysis challenges for complex data set (Nova)

• Polarimetry analysis:
  • Precision limit (AeBe^?)
  • Instruments calibrations

• Wide-field (deep) imaging
  • Sensitivity limits (high-z SN)
  • PSF variability across the field of view (..)

• Experiences or improved methods for:
  • Deconvolution vs Object Model Fitting
  • Working with aliased or undersampled data set
  • PSF calibrations (PSF reconstruction, PSF from Cn2 profile, etc)
  • AO in the Visible
  • Key metrics and parameters for quantitative AO science

• Science Operations:
  • Increased Observing Efficiency (sky subtraction, AO queue scheduling)
  • Better Instrument Calibrations (instrument calibration plan, dedicated calibration effort)
  • Use of ancillary calibrations data (seeing, photometry, Cn2, etc)
  • Data Reduction pipelines
  • Use of AO data from current archives (CFHT, ESO, Gemini)
  • etc

Invited Speakers from outside our community

We invited many speakers from outside our usual CfAO^? astronomy community to share their results and provide new insights on some these areas. Messages were sent on 02/08 and later in Feb and March to this effect. We got responses from many people, but none of them could join us for the workshop.

-- Version 2.1 - 28 Mar 2007