MONOSTATIC AND BISTATIC SCHEMES AND AN OPTIMAL ALGORITHM FOR TILT CORRECTION IN GROUND-BASED ADAPTIVE TELESCOPES

It has been pointed out that the two terms effective scattering volume and laser guide star are scientific synonyms. The first term was intr oduced by the end of 1970 by specialists in atmospheric optics and las er sounding. Information has also been given concerning fluctuations o f waves reflected from an object and waves passed twice through atmosp heric inhomogeneities, A corresponding mathematical apparatus allows o ne to estimate correlation characteristics of a laser guide star. The mutual correlation function of random angular displacements of a plane -wave image and the centroid displacements of a focused Gaussian laser beam are considered. The algorithm of optimal correction is introduce d in which a priori information is used. Based on this algorithm, the variance of residual jitter of a star image obtained with the use of a laser guide star is evaluated. (C) 1998 Optical Society of America.