SOUL at LBT: commissioning results, science and future

• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2310.14447
• Publication Date: 2023-01-01
• Authors: Pinna, Enrico; Rossi, Fabio; Agapito, Guido; Puglisi, Alfio; Plantet, Cedric; Ghose, Essna; Matthieu, Bec; Bonaglia, Marco; Briguglio, Runa; Brusa, Guido; Carbonaro, Luca; Cavallaro, Alessa...; Christou, Julian; Durney, Olivier; Ertel, Steve; Esposito, Simone; Grani, Paolo; Hinz, Philip; Guerra, Juan Carlos; Lefebvre, Michael; Mazzoni, Tommaso; Mechtley, Brandon; Miller, Douglas L.; Montoya, Manny; Power, Jennifer; Rothberg, Barry; Taylor, Gregory; Vaz, Amali; Xompero, Marco; Zhang, Xianyu
• Keywords: [SDU] Sciences of the Universe [physics]; PYRAMID; Pyramid; NGS; FOS: Physical sciences; Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics; Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM); SCAO

The SOUL systems at the Large Bincoular Telescope can be seen such as precursor for the ELT SCAO systems, combining together key technologies such as EMCCD, Pyramid WFS and adaptive telescopes. After the first light of the first upgraded system on September 2018, going through COVID and technical stops, we now have all the 4 systems working on-sky. Here, we report about some key control improvements and the system performance characterized during the commissioning. The upgrade allows us to correct more modes (500) in the bright end and increases the sky coverage providing SR(K)>20% with reference stars G$_{RP}$<17, opening to extragalcatic targets with NGS systems. Finally, we review the first astrophysical results, looking forward to the next generation instruments (SHARK-NIR, SHARK-Vis and iLocater), to be fed by the SOUL AO correction.<br/>13 pages, 10 figures, Adaptive Optics for Extremely Large Telescopes 7th Edition, 25-30 Jun 2023 Avignon (France)<br/>