Solar wavefront sensing has been a challenge for astrophysical instrumentalists, due to the low contrast between the Sun and the sky background compared to night-time observations, which limits the performance of adaptive optics systems. Wavefront correction in solar physics requires the analysis of extended images; meanwhile, at night the displacement of a punctual object is analysed. This technique limits the spatial resolution, and therefore the accuracy in the wavefront reconstruction. To solve this problem, a new method of direct wavefront sensing without the need for image formation
Research on the formation, origin, and evolution of the dichotomy between the thin and thick disk components of the Milky Way has been a major topic of study, as it is key to understanding how our Galaxy formed. However, this is not an easy task, since populations defined by their morphology or kinematics show a mixture of chemically distinct stellar populations. Age therefore becomes a fundamental parameter for understanding the evolution of the Galactic disk. Our goal is to derive the age and metallicity distributions of the thin and thick disks defined kinematically, in order to reveal
The solar corona—the outermost layer of the Sun’s atmosphere—is extremely hot and very low in density. One of the main challenges in solar physics is understanding why the corona reaches temperatures of over a million degrees. This heating is believed to be closely related to the Sun’s magnetic field. However, quantifying the coronal magnetic field is difficult because the light emitted by the corona is extremely faint, and its polarization signals, which encode the information on the magnetic field, are subtle. Thanks to recent advances in technology, telescopes like the Daniel K. Inouye