Wavefront sensing using a photonic lantern

The need for high speed wavefront sensing within astronomical adaptive optics is growing, especially when scaling existing systems to ELTs. A photonic lantern (PL) could be advantageous with such systems because the output can be formatted onto a fast ID CCD array separated from the telescope focal plane. We investigate the coupling of light from the focal plane into a simple four mode PL via simulations within RSoft. The output intensity distribution of the single mode cores when the input wavefront is affected by tip or tilt is analysed and compared with a quad cell of detector pixels typically used for a Shack -Hartmann.