In this PhD thesis, the candidate will analyze several environmental parameters to estimate the image quality of very and extremely large telescopes. In a first step, they will analyze several years of VLT guide probe Shack Hartmann data, to estimate the image quality provided by each individual Unit Telescope of the Very Large Telescope. This data will be correlated with the Ambient Site Monitor (ASM) measurements provided by the observatory, to characterize and understand differences in the image quality of each UT.

The immediate surrounding of the telescopes influences also their image quality (dome-seeing). The candidate will investigate its impact on the image quality of the VLT and ELT telescopes. They will perform and/or analyze both in-situ measurements and CFD model results to understand how turbulence in the telescope dome affects image quality.

For this PhD, we are looking for students with a strong background in Instrumentation, Physics, Fluid dynamics or Atmospheric Physics. Knowledge of data analysis (analytical methods, machine learning for instance) would be an asset.

Supervisor: M. Le Louarn