Large Field-of-View Spectropolarimetric Observations with a Large Aperture Telescope

• Published in: Solar physics 2012-02, Vol.276 (1-2), p.451-477
• Main Authors: Molodij, G., Aulanier, G.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Astrophysics; Astrophysics and Astroparticles; Atmospheric Sciences; Magnetic fields; Optics; Physics; Physics and Astronomy; Simulation; Solar physics; Space Exploration and Astronautics; Space Sciences (including Extraterrestrial Physics; Telescopes
• ISSN: 0038-0938; 1573-093X
• DOI: 10.1007/s11207-011-9882-7

In the context of the increasing interest in large-aperture telescopes dedicated to the Sun, we present a study to evaluate the adaptive-optics system limitations on the requirements expected for magnetic-field extrapolations and data-driven MHD simulations of active regions. The questions we address include: What is the size of the field of view at high spatial resolution for a four-meter class telescope with a spectrograph? What is the impact of the selected spectral domain on the performance in relation to the aforementioned scientific goals? We show that the visible-wavelength domain remains difficult to explore with ground-based telescopes using classical adaptive optics systems. The field of view obtained will be only a few arcseconds at the diffraction limit for most of the time. We review alternative configurations of adaptive-optics systems for different telescope apertures and wavelength domains which could be considered for practical implementation in derivations of the magnetic field from polarimetric observations.