Abstract

A new and potentially serious optical-system beam degradation is discussed. The degradation, which we define here as centroid anisoplanatism, deals with the errors and corresponding on-axis intensity reduction that are obtained when centroid or wave-front gradient tracking systems are employed to determine the overall atmospheric-turbulence-induced tilt in short-term imaging and/or laser transmitting systems. The error between overall tilt and centroid measurements becomes more important both at shorter wavelengths and for large-diameter optics. It is also exacerbated by point-ahead limitations and scintillation. Specifically, it is shown that a Strehl ratio of less than 3 × 10−2 results for D/r0 ≳ 100, where D is the optics aperture diameter and r0 is the turbulence-induced lateral coherence length.

© 1985 Optical Society of America

Full Article  |  PDF Article
OSA Recommended Articles
Scintillation effects on centroid anisoplanatism

M. T. Tavis and H. T. Yura
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 4(1) 57-59 (1987)

Zernike-polynomial expansion of turbulence-induced centroid anisoplanatism

J. H. Churnside, G. A. Tyler, M. T. Tavis, and H. T. Yura
Opt. Lett. 10(6) 258-260 (1985)

Anisoplanatism in airborne laser communication

James A. Louthain and Jason D. Schmidt
Opt. Express 16(14) 10769-10785 (2008)

More Recommended Articles

References

You do not have subscription access to this journal. Citation lists with outbound citation links are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an OSA member, or as an authorized user of your institution.

Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Login to access OSA Member Subscription

Cited By

You do not have subscription access to this journal. Cited by links are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an OSA member, or as an authorized user of your institution.

Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Login to access OSA Member Subscription

Figures (4)

You do not have subscription access to this journal. Figure files are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an OSA member, or as an authorized user of your institution.

Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Login to access OSA Member Subscription

Tables (3)

You do not have subscription access to this journal. Article tables are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an OSA member, or as an authorized user of your institution.

Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Login to access OSA Member Subscription

Equations (92)

You do not have subscription access to this journal. Equations are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an OSA member, or as an authorized user of your institution.

Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Login to access OSA Member Subscription

Metrics

You do not have subscription access to this journal. Article level metrics are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an OSA member, or as an authorized user of your institution.

Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Login to access OSA Member Subscription