• Current Optics and Photonics
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.269-279
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• 2018

We are currently investigating the feasibility of a 1.6 m telescope with a laser-guide star adaptive optics (AO) system. The telescope, if successfully commissioned, would be the first dedicated adaptive optics observatory in South Korea. The 1.6 m telescope is an f/13.6 Cassegrain telescope with a focal length of 21.7 m. This paper first reviews atmospheric seeing conditions measured over a year in 2014~2015 at the Bohyun Observatory, South Korea, which corresponds to an area from 11.6 to 21.6 cm within 95% probability with regard to the Fried parameter of 880 nm at a telescope pupil plane. We then derive principal seeing conditions such as the Fried parameter and Greenwood frequency for eight astronomical spectral bands (V/R/I/J/H/K/L/M centered at 0.55, 0.64, 0.79, 1.22, 1.65, 2.20, 3.55, and $4.77{\mu}m$). Then we propose an AO system with a laser guide star for the 1.6 m telescope based on the seeing conditions. The proposed AO system consists of a fast tip/tilt secondary mirror, a $17{\times}17$ deformable mirror, a $16{\times}16$ Shack-Hartmann sensor, and a sodium laser guide star (589.2 nm). The high order AO system is close-looped with 2 KHz sampling frequency while the tip/tilt mirror is independently close-looped with 63 Hz sampling frequency. The AO system has three operational concepts: 1) bright target observation with its own wavefront sensing, 2) less bright star observation with wavefront sensing from another bright natural guide star (NGS), and 3) faint target observation with tip/tilt sensing from a bright natural guide star and wavefront sensing from a laser guide star. We name these three concepts 'None', 'NGS only', and 'LGS + NGS', respectively. Following a thorough investigation into the error sources of the AO system, we predict the root mean square (RMS) wavefront error of the system and its corresponding Strehl ratio over nine analysis cases over the worst ($2{\sigma}$) seeing conditions. From the analysis, we expect Strehl ratio >0.3 in most seeing conditions with guide stars.

• Current Optics and Photonics
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.101-113
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• 2021

Adaptive optics (AO) systems are becoming more complex to improve their optical performance and enlarge their field of view, so it is a hard and time consuming process to set up and optimize the components of AO systems with actual implementation. However, simulations allow AO scientists and engineers to experiment with different optical layouts and components without needing to obtain and prepare them physically. In this paper, we introduce a new AO simulation named the Korea Adaptive Optics Simulation (KAOS), independently developed by LIG Nex1. We verified the performance of KAOS by comparing with other AO simulation tools. In the comparison simulation, we confirmed the results from KAOS and other AO simulation tools were very similar. Also, we proposed a laser tomography AO system with five Rayleigh laser guide stars (LGSs) optimized by using KAOS to overcome the disadvantages of the AO system with a single sodium LGS for the satellite imaging system. We verified the performance of the proposed AO system using KAOS, and the simulation result showed averaged Strehl ratio of 0.37.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.52.2-52.2
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• 2011

The correlation between black hole mass and galaxy stellar velocity dispersion gives an important clue on the black hole growth and galaxy evolution. In the case of AGN, however, it is extremely difficult to measure stellar velocity dispersions in the optical spectra since AGN continuum dilutes stellar absorption features. In contrast, stellar velocity dispersions of active galaxies can be measured in the near-IR, where AGN-to-star flux ratio is much smaller, particularly with the laser-guide-star adaptive optics. However, it is crucial to test whether the stellar velocity dispersion measured from the near-IR spectra is consistent with that measured from the optical spectra. Using the TripleSpec at the Palomar 5-m Telescope, we obtained high quality spectra ranging from 1 to 2.4 micron for a sample of 35 nearby galaxies, for which dynamical black hole masses and optical stellar velocity dispersion measurements are available, in order to calibrate the stellar velocity dispersion in the near-IR. In this poster, we present the initial results based on 10 galaxies, with the stellar velocity dispersion measured in the H-band.

• Proceedings of the Optical Society of Korea Conference
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• 2000.08a
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• pp.3-3
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• 2000

Adaptive Optical (AO) technology can compensate for wave-front errors in real-time to improve image and beam quality. The research and development on AO in China began in 1979. In 1980, the first laboratory on AO in China was established in Institute of Optics and Electronics (IOE), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Since then several AO systems have been built in this Laboratory. The 19-element system is the first AO system in the world ever used in inertial confinement fusion (ICF) facility in our knowledge. It corrects the static error of this large laser engineering. The 21-element system was firstly tested at the 1.2m telescope of Kunming Observatory in 1990 and then up-dated as an IR AO system installed at the 2.16m telescope of Beijing Observatory. The 37-element system was used with a turbulence cell in Laboratory on Atmospheric Optics in Hefei to conduct elementary research on Atmospheric Optics. The 61-element system for astronomical observation is newly developed. It has been successfully installed at the 1.2m telescope of Kunming Observatory and a laser guide star system will be integrated with the system. A compact AO system using our newly developed miniature DM for high resolution ophthalmic imaging of retina is also being built. The key elements of these AO systems, deformable mirrors and fast-steering mirrors, are all developed in this Laboratory. In this talk, the main configurations of these AO systems, some test results as well as the specifications of these active mirrors will be presented.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.153-155
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• 2007

We have analyzed H and $K_s$-band images of the Arches cluster obtained using the NIRC2 instrument on Keck with the laser guide star adaptive optics (LGS AO) system. With the help of the LGS AO system, we were able to obtain the deepest ever photometry for this cluster and its neighborhood, and derive the background-subtracted present-day mass function (PDMF) down to $1.3M_{\bigodot}$ for the 5"-9" annulus of the cluster. We find that the previously reported turnover at $6M_{\bigodot}$ is simply due to a local bump in the mass function (MF), and that the MF continues to increase down to our 50 % completeness limit ($1.3M_{\bigodot}$) with a power-law exponent of ${\Gamma}$ = -0.91 for the mass range of 1.3 < M/$M_{\bigodot}$ < 50. Our numerical calculations for the evolution of the Arches cluster show that the ${\Gamma}$ values for our annulus increase by 0.1-0.2 during the lifetime of the cluster, and thus suggest that the Arches cluster initially had ${\Gamma}$ of $-1.0{\sim}-1.1$, which is only slightly shallower than the Salpeter value.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.79-79
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• 2010

To investigate whether the present-day active galaxies follow the same black hole mass vs. stellar velocity dispersion (MBH-$\sigma*$) relation as quiescent galaxies, we measured the velocity dispersions of a sample of local Seyfert 1 galaxies, for which black hole masses were measured via reverberation mapping. We measured stellar velocity dispersions from high S/N optical spectra centered on the Ca II triplet region (${\sim}8500^{\circ}A$), obtained at the Keck, Palomar, and Lick Observatories. For two objects, in which the Ca II triplet region was contaminated by nuclear emission, we used high-quality H-band spectra obtained with the OH-Suppressing Infrared Imaging Spectrograph and laser-guide star adaptive optics at the Keck-II Telescope. Combining our new measurements with data from the literature, we assemble a sample of 24 active galaxies with stellar velocity dispersions and reverberation MBH in the range of black hole mass 106< MBH /$M{\odot}$ < 109,toobtainthefirstreverberationmappingconstraintsontheslopeandintrinsicscatteroftheMBH- $\sigma*$ relation of active galaxies. Assuming a constant virial coefficient f for the reverberation MBH, we find a slope ${\beta}=3.55{\pm}0.60$ and the intrinsic scatter ${\sigma}int=0.43{\pm}0.08$ dex in the relation log (MBH/M${\odot}$)=$\alpha+\beta$ log(${\sigma}*$/200 km s-1), which are consistent with those found for quiescent galaxies. We derive an updated value of the virial coefficient f by finding the value which places the reverberation masses in best agreement with the MBH - $\sigma*$ relation of quiescent galaxies; using the quiescent MBH - $\sigma*$ relation determined by Gultekin et al. we find log f=0.72+0.09 (or $0.71{\pm}0.10$) with an intrinsic scatter of $0.44{\pm}0.07$ (or 0.46+0.07) dex. No correlations between f and parameters connected to the physics of accretion (such as the Eddington ratio or line-shape measurements) are found. The uncertainty of the virial coefficient remains one of the main sources of the uncertainty in black hole mass determination using reverberation mapping, and therefore also in single-epoch spectroscopic estimates of black hole masses in active galaxies.