Deformation of Optics for Photon Monte Carlo Simulations

Abstract

We develop a comprehensive approach to simulate the deformation of mirrors and lenses due to thermal and mechanical stresses that couples efficiently to photon-based optics simulations. This expands upon previous work where we demonstrated a comprehensive ab initio approach to simulate astronomical images using a photon Monte Carlo method. We apply elasticity theory and estimate thermal effects by adapting a three-dimensional numerical method. We also consider the effect of active optics control systems and active cooling systems in further correcting distortions in the optics. We validate the approach by showing convergence to analytic estimates, and then apply the methodology to the WIYN 3.5 m telescope primary mirror. We demonstrate that changes in the soak temperature result in second-order point-spread function (PSF) defocusing, the gravitational sag and positioning errors result in highly structured PSF distortions, and large-scale thermal gradients result in elliptical PSF distortion patterns. All three aspects of the environment are larger than the intrinsic optical aberrations of the design, and further exploration with a variety of telescopes should lead to detailed PSF size and shape, astrometric distortion, and field variation predictions. The simulation capabilities developed in this work are publicly available with the Photon Simulation package.