The structure of high Strehl ratio point-spread functions

We describe the symmetries present in the point-spread function (PSF) of an optical system either located in space or corrected by an adaptive optics (AO) system to Strehl ratios of about 70% and higher. We present a formalism for expanding the PSF to arbitrary order in terms of powers of the Fourier transform of the residual phase error over an arbitrarily shaped and apodized entrance aperture. For traditional unapodized apertures at high Strehl ratios, bright speckles pinned to the bright Airy rings are part of an antisymmetric perturbation of the perfect PSF, arising from the term that is first order in the residual phase error. There are two symmetric second-degree terms. One is negative at the center and, like the first-order term, is modulated by the perfect image's field strength-it reduces to the Marechal approximation at the center of the PSF. The other is nonnegative everywhere, zero at the image center, and can be responsible for an extended halo which limits the dynamic range of faint companion detection in the darkest portions of the image. In regimes where one or the other term dominates the speckles in an image, the symmetry of the dominant term can be exploited to reduce the effect of those speckles, potentially by an order of magnitude or more. We demonstrate the effects of both secondary obscuration and pupil apodization on the structure of residual speckles and discuss how these symmetries can be exploited by appropriate telescope and instrument design, observing strategies, and filter bandwidths to improve the dynamic range of high dynamic range AO and space-based observations. Finally, we show that our analysis is relevant to high dynamic range coronagraphy.