Abstract 309

Submitted by Gérard ROUSSET

Authors

G. Rousset (1), T. Fusco (2), E. Gendron (1), T. Morris (3), F. Assémat (2), C. Robert (2), R. Myers (3), F. Vidal (1), D. Gratadour (1), N. Dipper (3), B. Le Roux (4), J.-G. Cuby (4), S. Morris (3), P. Jagourel (5), H. Schnetler (6), M. Cohen (5), D. Le Mignant (4), P. Parr-Burman 6)

Affiliations

(1) LESIA, Observatoire de Paris, Meudon, France ; (2) ONERA, Châtillon, France ; (3) University of Durham, Durham, UK ; (4) LAM, Marseille, France ; (5) GEPI, Observatoire de Paris, Meudon, France ; (6) ATC, Edinburgh, UK

Abstract

EAGLE is one of the E-ELT instruments currently being studied. It is wide field, multi Integral Field Unit (IFU) near IR spectrograph covering a 5 to 10 arcmin patrol field and also consists of a fully integrated AO system for enhanced performance. One of its main scientific drivers is the analysis of the physics and evolution of high-redshift galaxies. The AO system is used to increase the spatial resolution performance (Ensquared Energy (EE) > 30% for the spatial resolution (75x75 mas²) of the instrument) to ensure a high SNR. Its main characteristic is to deliver the full AO correction for small areas centered on the selected scientific targets, instead of delivering an average correction over the entire FoV. Multi Object AO concept has been selected for this instrument, combining a number of LGS and NGS for the wavefront sensing over the patrol field (large field of view), and provides open-loop compensation for the atmospheric turbulence for each target using tomographic reconstruction. Numerical simulations, key-concept laboratory validations and an on-sky demonstration are conducted to ensure a well design the system, to demonstrate the feasibility of the concept and to reduce the risks. We will present the current status of the design and validation activities.