Exploring the limits of adaptive wavefront compensation for ground based astronomical interferometers.

Turbulence induced decorrelation of wavefronts received from distant astronomical sources severely limits the signal to noise ratio of the estimates of fringe visibility obtainable using uncompensated optical interferometers located on the surface of the earth. Adaptive optics systems can be used to concentrate light in the fringe patterns with the consequence of improving the sensitivity and general utility of interferometric data acquisition. The authors present calculations which predict the improvement(s) in detection sensitivity expressed in limiting detectable visual magnitude for a stellar interferometer equipped with a wavefront compensation system capable of widely varying degrees of spatial compensation.