Thesis defense of Lucas MARQUIS

Thesis defense of Lucas MARQUIS, PhD student in the Imaging and Information group of the Laboratoire Charles Fabry, on 23 June 2023 at 2pm in the Amphithéâtre of the Institut d'Optique Graduate School in Palaiseau, on the topic: "High performance control for the Gran Telescopio Canarias adaptive optics system".

Abstract: "Atmospheric turbulence degrades the quality of images acquired by terrestrial telescopes. Adaptive optics (AO) makes it possible to compensate for these degradations in real time using a deformable mirror. The 10 m diameter Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC, La Palma, Canary Islands) will be equipped with such a system, GTCAO, designed by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC). In my thesis, I design and implement a very efficient servo-control for GTCAO: mathematical models predict turbulence to better compensate for it. This is a first for a system dedicated to a telescope of this size and under experimental conditions. I developed the strategies for identifying and updating the models (because turbulence evolves rapidly), and the results are there! Image quality has improved in a large number of cases. This thesis, in international cotutelle with the University of La Laguna, was carried out in collaboration with the IAC".