Performance analysis of and compensation for

aspect-ratio effects of fast-Fourier-transform-based

simulations of large atmospheric wave fronts

Giorgio Sedmak

Fast-Fourier-transform-based simulators of atmospheric wave fronts with a von Kármán turbulence

spectrum were tested with reference to the phase-structure function and phase variance over a pupil on
large square and rectangular formats. The symmetry and the accuracy of the phase-structure function
were found to be limited by the aspect ratio and the size of the phase screen. The phase variance over
a pupil is less sensitive to the aspect ratio than the phase-structure function and is dependent mainly on
the size of the phase screen. Several tests are reported and discussed together with a method of
compensation for the negative effects of rectangular formats. © 1998 Optical Society of America
OCIS codes: 010.1330, 070.2590, 350.5030.

1. Introduction Kolmogorov as well as for von Kármán turbulence

The simulation of a long time series of atmospheric
speckles is required for a number of astronomical
applications in the field of high-spatial-resolution im-
aging from the ground. Several methods have been
implemented for this purpose, the majority of which
follow two main approaches. The first is based on
the simulation of one or more atmospheric wave
fronts, larger than the telescope aperture, that are
then shifted with respect to the pupil. One standard
for the simulation of large random phase screens is
the fast-Fourier-transform- ~FFT-! based method of
McGlamery.1 The generation of a time series of
speckles by shifting the phase screen in front of the
pupil was discussed, among others, by Jakobsson.2
This approach is simple, fast, and computer effective
but suffers from well-known limitations in the simu-
lation of the lower spatial frequencies of atmospheric
turbulence. Some methods that were implemented
in order to reduce this problem are referenced and
described below. The second approach is based on
the simulation of a set of random wave fronts with a
size comparable with the pupil and characterized by
the appropriate spatial and temporal statistics for
The author is with the Department of Astronomy, Trieste Uni-
versity, Via G. B. Tiepolo 11, 34131 Trieste, Italy.
Received 11 July 1997; revised manuscript received 15 October
1997.
0003-6935y98y214605-09$15.00y0
© 1998 Optical Society of America
spectra. Each simulated phase screen is then used
to generate the corresponding speckle. One imple-
mentation based on the space–time covariance ma-
trix of the phases over the pupil was realized by
Roggemann et al.3 Recently a different implemen-
tation by a set of Fourier-series-transform-based
modal expansions of the wave front over the pupil
was realized by Welsh.4 This approach could gener-
ate accurate simulations that would be useful for fine
temporal evolution analysis and particularly for the
study of anisoplanatic effects. The major drawback
of the method of Roggemann et al.3 is the high de-
mand of computational accuracy and memory,
whereas the method of Welsh4 could necessitate a
significant amount of computing time for large pu-
pils.
Within this framework it might be useful to go
deeper into the estimate of the performance of FFT-
based simulators inasmuch as little has been pub-
lished on the phase-structure function and phase
variance over the pupil of FFT-based simulations of
large wave fronts, in particular for rectangular for-
mats and von Kármán statistics. The von Kármán
condition is important because at least it approxi-
mates the atmospheric turbulence spectrum ob-
served during astronomical measurements, as shown
by Buscher et al.5 Johansson and Gavel6 report data
for the Kolmogorov and von Kármán phase-structure
functions of FFT-based phase-screen simulators with
low-spatial-frequency boosters for only square for-
mats and separations up to 1 m. These data are not

20 July 1998 y Vol. 37, No. 21 y APPLIED OPTICS 4605

sufficient to characterize the performance on pupils
in the 10-m range that is typical of new generation
telescopes. In particular, no information is given in
Ref. 6 on the possible asymmetries of the phase-
structure function in the case of long rectangular
FFT-based phase screens. Moreover, no informa-
tion has been reported for the phase variance over the
pupil. The temporal behavior of the Zernike aber-
rations for rectangular FFT-based phase screens has
been studied by Jakobsson2 but in this study there is
no reference to possible effects of the aspect ratio on
the low-frequency deviations from theory, found in
the simulations.
In Section 2 the formulation of the FFT-based
phase-screen simulator with low-spatial-frequency
boosting is briefly reviewed. Section 3 reports the
phase-structure function and phase variance over the
pupil of a number of simulations of large single-layer
wave fronts with particular attention to the asymme-
tries of the phase-structure function on rectangular
formats. Section 4 reports a method to reduce the
deviations from theory found in the tests on rectan-
gular formats together with sample results that are
summarized in the conclusion.
2. Fast-Fourier-Transform-Based Phase-Screen
Simulators with Low-Spatial-Frequency Boosting
In its simplest approach, the generation of a temporal
sequence of speckles under the near-field and Tay-
lor’s frozen-flow hypothesis is done by means of sim-
ulation of a single static phase screen suitably larger
than the telescope aperture, which is then shifted by
steps in front of the pupil. The short-term temporal
decorrelation observed between speckles can be sim-
ulated approximately by means of a Markov process
to evolve the wave front being shifted, as shown by
Glindemann et al.7 Two or more statistically inde-
pendent wave-front simulations can be combined in
such a way as to generate the multilayer model of the
turbulent atmosphere. This model is required to
mimic more accurately the temporal effects, as dis-
cussed by Roddier8 and Glindemann and Rees.9 All
these methods make use of large phase screens of a
size proportional to the time interval to be sampled in
the simulation. With typical speckle lifetimes of,
say, 10 ms, a simulation of 10 s will generate 1000
speckles. With a typical wind speed of 10 mys this
corresponds to a phase-screen step of 0.1 m and a
total length of the phase screen of 100 m, a figure
comparable with the outer scale length of the turbu-
lent atmosphere. The phase-screen size should in
any case be comparable with or larger than the outer
scale length of the turbulence in order to include the
major fraction of the turbulent power in the simula-
tion.
The numerical generation of such large phase
screens is usually implemented by means of the FFT-
based method of McGlamery1 and allows simulations
of square as well as rectangular formats substan-
tially limited only by the computer memory available
for the FFT. The rectangular format is attractive
because it optimizes the memory allocation for the
4606 APPLIED OPTICS y Vol. 37, No. 21 y 20 July 1998
maximum length of the phase screen at a given ap-
erture of the pupil and allows the simulation of a
longer time series of speckles at a given memory.
One can generate the FFT-based random phase
screen by filtering, in the Fourier domain, a normal
noise with a filter of spectral response equal to the
square root of the atmospheric turbulence spectrum,
usually characterized by Kolmogorov or von Kármán
statistics. The formulation used in this paper, re-
ported with minor formal changes from Johansson
and Gavel,6 is described by the following equations:
Nxy221 Nyy221
fmn 5 ( (
m952Nxy2 n952Nyy2
hm9n9 fm9n9
3 exp@i2p~m9myNx 1 n9nyNy!#, (1)
fm9n9 5 0.15132~Gx Gy!21y2r25y6
0
3 @~m9yGx!2 1 ~n9yGy!2 1 L22
0 #
211y12
, (2)
where ~fmn, m 5 2Nxy2, Nxy2 2 1, n 5 2Nyy2,
Nyy2 2 1! is the simulated random phase screen of
size ~Gx, Gy! in meters and ~Nx, Ny! in pixels, hm9n9 is
a complex Hermitian normal ~0, 1y=2! noise, fm9n9 is
the filter that approximates the square root of the von
Kármán spectrum, r0 is the Fried parameter, L0 is
the outer scale length, and f0, 0 5 0 to obtain zero-
mean phase.
The sizes of the phase screen and the support array
set the minimum and the maximum spatial frequen-
cies of the atmospheric turbulence spectrum that can
be sampled in the simulation. It is well known that
the FFT-based method is not critical at higher spatial
frequencies, whereas it is so at lower ones because
the array size soon exceeds any practicable memory
size for adequate sampling of the outer scale range
of the turbulence. The undersampling of lower spa-
tial frequencies will then deteriorate the simulation
of any low-order turbulence effects, such as the tilt
of the wave front. Several solutions have been
proposed in order to overcome this problem. Unfor-
tunately, the simple approach of increasing the
phase-screen size at a fixed array size is not practical
because it undersamples the higher spatial frequen-
cies of the turbulence as well as the pupil. One run-
ning approach consists of adding to the FFT-based
phase screen a statistically independent phase screen
that accurately simulates just the lower spatial fre-
quency range of the turbulence not sampled by the
FFT-based method.
The low-frequency phase screen can be simulated
by means of the Zernike polynomial expansion
method of Roddier,10 which shows superior perfor-
mance under Kolmogorov statistics. In this method
the low-frequency wave front is simulated by low-
order Zernike modal expansion over the pupil and
then added to the FFT-based phase screen by use of
Noll’s statistics.11 However, as pointed out by Ja-
kobsson,2 the method of Roddier10 may suffer from
numerical problems of the large formats needed by
the simulation of a long time series of speckles and is
not generally used for such applications.
 One approach intrinsically fit for large and possibly
rectangular formats consists of adding statistically
independent subharmonic random phase screens of a
size multiple of the FFT-based phase-screen size to
the FFT-based phase screen. Several techniques
are available for this purpose, such as the Fourier-
series-transform-based methods of Herman and
Strugala,12 Lane et al.,13 and Johansson and Gavel.6
A detailed comparison of the performances of these
methods is reported in Ref. 6. The method of Her-
man and Strugala12 is based on the simulation of a
random subharmonic phase screen that is an exact
multiple of the FFT-based phase screen. The sub-
harmonic phase screen is then sampled on the grid of
the FFT support array. This method is straightfor-
ward but yet poor at lower spatial frequencies, even
for large subharmonic phase screens. The method of
Lane et al.13 can be described as an iterative appli-
cation of the method of Herman and Strugala12 to a
subharmonic phase screen that is three times larger
than the current phase screen, with the first iteration
starting from the FFT-based phase-screen size.
This method samples the lower spatial frequencies of
the turbulence much better than the previous method
and is faster to compute. The method of Johansson
and Gavel6 is a hybrid of the two previous methods.
It works like the method of Lane et al.13 but on a
subharmonic screen half of the size of the current one.
This method works well, particularly in the Kolmog-
orov case, at the cost of some extra computing time.
However, it should be noted that all these methods
are based on the Fourier series transform and not on
the FFT, and they are intrinsically time-consuming
in the simulation of large formats.
The subharmonic phase-screen simulator used in
this paper is that of Lane et al.13 which was selected
for its favorable performance to computing speed ra-
tio. The formulation is that of Johansson and Gav-
el,6 with minor formal changes, and is described by
the following equations:
Np 1 1
( ( (
fLF
mn 5
LF LF
hm9n9 f m9n9
p51 m9521 n9521
2p
3 exp@i2p3 ~m9myNx 1 n9nyNy!#, (3)
21y2 25y6 2p 2p
f LF
m9n9 5 0.15132~Gx G ! y r0 3 @~3 m9yGx!2
2p
1 ~3 n9yGy! 1 L #
2 22 211y12
, (4)
0
where LF identifies the variables specific to the low-
spatial-frequency phase screen realized with the con-
00 5 0 for the
tribution of Np subharmonics, and f LF
zero-mean phase. The overall phase screen is the
sum of the FFT-based and subharmonic phase
screens.
3. Phase-Structure Function and Phase Variance over
the Pupil
The simulator used for the tests was realized with an
IDL 4.0 software procedure that implements Eqs.
~1!–~4!. The phase screen is computed with NxyNy 5
GxyGy. This sets equal cutoff spatial frequencies
and possibly different spatial-frequency bins on the
two axes. Any residual mean value is removed from
the phase after the FFT and after the computation of
each subharmonic in order to give a zero piston con-
tribution and decrease the numerical problems on
higher-order subharmonics. The tests were com-
puted for a value of the Fried parameter of r0 5 0.1 m.
Other tests done with r0 5 1.0 m have shown quali-
tatively similar results.
A. Phase-Structure Function
The phase-structure function can be computed from
the average of a large set of statistically independent
realizations. Roddier10 reports good estimates from
sets of 1000 realizations. However, it is possible to
evaluate analytically the expected phase-structure
function of the simulated phase screen through the
autocorrelation of the filter used for the Fourier-
transform-based simulations, as proposed by Johan-
sson and Gavel.6 This avoids the long computing
time otherwise needed, with the drawback that the
phase-structure function can be computed only up to
separations that are half of the size of the phase
screen, which is the approach that we used. We
describe the formulation by the following equations
reported from Johansson and Gavel6:
Df ~m, n! 5 2@Bf ~0, 0! 2 Bf ~m, n!#, (5)
Nxy221 Nyy221
Bf ~m, n! 5 ( (
m952Nxy2 n952Nyy2
2
f m9n9
3 exp@i2p~m9myNx 1 n9nyNy!#, (6)
where D is the expected phase-structure function of
the phase screen and B is the autocorrelation of the
filter defined by Eq. ~2!. Once BLF is taken as the
autocorrelation of the filter defined by Eq. ~4!, the
same formulation is used for the phase-structure
function of the subharmonic phase screen when Eq.
~6! is replaced with
Np 1 1
( ( (
mn 5
BLF ~ f m9n9 !
LF 2
p51 m9521 n9521
3 exp@i2p32p~m9myNx 1 n9nyNy!#. (7)
The overall phase-structure function is the sum of the
phase-structure functions of the FFT-based and sub-
harmonic phase screens. The data obtained from
the simulations should then be compared with the
theoretical phase-structure function for the von
Kármán spectrum. One convenient expression of
the von Kármán phase-structure function was given
by Herman and Strugala12:
D~r! 5 6.16r25y3
0 $~3y5!@L0y~2p!#5y3
2 @rL0y~4p!#5y6K5y6~2pryL0!yG~11y6!%, (8)
where D~r! is the phase-structure function, r is the
separation, K5y6~2! is a modified fractional Bessel
function of the third kind, and G~2! is the gamma
function. At infinite L0 this function approximates
20 July 1998 y Vol. 37, No. 21 y APPLIED OPTICS 4607
Fig. 1. Phase-structure functions of FFT-based phase-screen sim-
ulations for square formats with additional subharmonic phase
screens: DFFT is the radial section from the center of the phase-
structure function of the FFT-based phase screen, DLF is the same
for the subharmonic phase screen, and D Von Karman the theo-
retical phase structure functions ~thick curve!. ~a! Phase screen
of 20 m 3 20 m and 128 3 128 pixels, r0 5 0.1 m, L0 5 30 m, three
subharmonics; ~b! phase screen of 40 m 3 40 m and 128 3 128
pixels, r0 5 0.1 m, L0 5 30 m, no subharmonics.
the well-known Kolmogorov phase-structure function
D`~r! 5 6.88~ryr0!5y3.
The results of the tests done on the phase-structure
function are presented in Fig. 1 for square formats
and in Fig. 2 for rectangular formats. The special
functions needed for the calculation of the theoretical
phase-structure function were evaluated by means of
Mathematica 2.2 software.
The von Kármán phase-structure function is rea-
sonably well approximated on square formats at
screen sizes comparable with the outer scale length
with just a few subharmonics, as shown in Fig. 1~a!.
In this case three subharmonics allow a fair approx-
imation of the von Kármán function with a ratio of
the phase-screen size to the outer scale length of 2y3
with a maximum separation of 10 m and an outer
scale length of 30 m. In this case the contribution of
the subharmonic phase screen is important because
of the relatively low ratio of the phase-screen size to
the outer scale length. The accuracy of the phase-
structure function improves and the relative weight
of the subharmonic contribution decreases quickly as
the ratio of the phase-screen size to the outer scale
length increases up to 1 ~and beyond!, as shown in
4608 APPLIED OPTICS y Vol. 37, No. 21 y 20 July 1998
Fig. 2. Phase-structure functions of FFT-based phase-screen sim-
ulations for rectangular formats with additional subharmonic
phase screens: Phase-structure function image of ~a! the FFT-
based phase screen ~DFFT!; ~b! the subharmonic phase screen
~DLF!, rebinned to 128 3 64 pixels in the reproduction. ~c! X and
Y sections from the center of the phase-structure function.
DFFT~x! and DFFT~ y! are the X and the Y sections of the phase-
structure function of the FFT-based phase screen, respectively,
DLF~x! and DLF~ y! are the same for the subharmonic phase
screen, D~x! is the X section of the overall phase-structure function
sum of DFFT~x! and DLF~x!, D~ y! is the Y-section sum of DFFT~ y!
and DLF~ y!, and D Von Karman is the theoretical phase structure
function ~thick curve!. The phase screen is 8 m 3 4 m and 512 3
256 pixels, r0 5 0.1 m, L0 5 10 m, three subharmonics.
Fig. 1~b!. This implies a minor role of the subhar-
monic booster for the large formats typical of simu-
lations of a long time series of speckles. These
results are consistent with those obtained by other
authors, e.g., Jakobsson2 and Welsh,4 and extend
their validity to telescope pupils in the 10-m range.
The results for rectangular formats, shown in Fig.
2, are completely different. The most evident effect
is the break of the circular symmetry of the phase-
structure function, which is evident in the isophotes
of the phase-structure function images shown in Fig.
2~a! for the FFT-based phase screen and in Fig. 2~b!
for the subharmonic phase screen. The X and the Y
sections from the center of the phase-structure func-
tion are shown in Fig. 2~c!. It should be noted that
the sections corresponding to the longer side of the
phase screen exceed the theoretical values. The
asymmetry is due to the fact that the simulations
were done with NxyNy 5 GxyGy in order to get equal
X and Y sampling steps and this forced different fx
and fy spatial-frequency bins. The lower spatial-
frequency range of the turbulence is then more un-
dersampled on the axis that corresponds to the
smaller side of the phase screen. The asymmetry of
the phase-structure function of one single-layer
Fourier-transform-based simulation is then propor-
tional to the aspect ratio of the phase screen. Long
and narrow phase screens could show severe asym-
metries and distortions of any parameter depending
on the accuracy of the phase-structure function.
This could reduce the advantage of using rectangular
FFT-based phase screens because of the need for
lower aspect ratios for better accuracy at a given
computer memory. It should also be noted that the
major axes of the isophotes of the phase-structure
functions, the FFT-based phase screens, and the sub-
harmonic phase screens are mutually perpendicular.
This tends to average out the asymmetry of the over-
all phase-structure function in the case of substantial
subharmonic contributions or in the case of multi-
layer simulations with mutually perpendicular wind
vectors. However, this does not improve the accu-
racy of each individual wave-front simulation. One
approximate solution to the distortions of the phase-
structure function dependent on the rectangular for-
mat of the phase screen is reported in Section 4.
B. Phase Variance over the Pupil
The variance s2f of the phase over circular pupils open
in the phase screen with apertures d ranging from
~dyr0! 5 1 up to the maximum allowed by the screen
size can be computed by means of the expressions
given by Fried14 and the phase-structure function
D~r!, as follows:
*
d
s2f~d! 5 4d22 rFC~r, d! D~r!dr, (9)
0 based phase-screen simulation.
FC~r, d! 5 p21$2 arccos~ryd! 2 2~ryd!@1 2 ~ryd!2#1y2%,
(10)
FL~r, d! 5 p21$6 arccos~ryd! 2 @14~ryd! 2 8~ryd!3#
3 @1 2 ~ryd!2#1y2%, (11)
where the term FC~r, d! in Eq. ~9! is replaced by FL~r,
d! if the phase variance is computed after removal of
the tip–tilt contribution.
The results for a 10-m square phase screen with
outer scale lengths of 10, 30, and 100 m, and infinity
are presented in Fig 3. All the data were obtained
by averaging 100 statistically independent realiza-
tions ~200 for the Kolmogorov reference case! and
were normalized by the factor ~dyr0!5y3 from the Kol-
mogorov case. The relatively higher dispersion of
data at lower ~dyr0! values is due to the decreased
number of pixels in the corresponding pupils. As
shown by Figs. 3~a! and 3~b!, the theoretical distri-
bution is well approximated for screen sizes compa-
rable with outer scale lengths up to 30 m with
typically up to five subharmonics. The approxima-
Fig. 3. Normalized phase variance over circular pupils of 100
FFT-based phase-screen simulations for square formats with ad-
ditional subharmonic phase screens. There is one sigma error
bars. All phase screens are 10 m 3 10 m and 128 3 128 pixels,
with r0 5 0.1 m: ~a! L0 5 10 m, three subharmonics; ~b! L0 5 30
m, five subharmonics; ~c! L0 5 100 m, five subharmonics; ~d! infi-
nite L0, ten subharmonics. Case ~d! used 200 simulations. The
theoretical values are plotted by continuous curves.
tion then deteriorates for screen sizes smaller than
the outer scale length. As shown by Fig. 3~d! this
effect cannot be recovered by the addition of more
subharmonics. This is consistent with similar re-
sults obtained for the phase-structure function by
Johansson and Gavel.6 The effect was further in-
vestigated on simulations of phase screens with re-
moval of the tip–tilt contribution. The results
reported in Fig. 4 show a good approximation to the-
ory, even if the data dispersion is somewhat larger
than their standard deviation because of the rela-
tively low number of tests used. This confirms that
the deviations from theory without tip–tilt removal
are due mostly to the low-frequency region of the
turbulence not sampled in any Fourier-transform-
The rectangular format yields more complex re-
sults that depend on the size as well as on the aspect
ratio of the phase screen, as shown in Fig. 5. In this
test the phase variance was computed for three cir-
cular pupils of equal aperture placed at the two ends
and the center of the rectangular phase screen.
The test shown in Fig. 5~a! was done with an aspect
ratio of 1:8 and a value of the smaller side of the
phase screen of 20% of the outer scale length, which
shows a large deviation from theory of the data of the
center pupil, whereas the data of the two end pupils
nearly overlap with the theoretical distribution.
This is due to the position-dependent asymmetry of
the phase-structure function along the phase screen
and can imply strongly different levels of accuracy of
the speckles within the simulated time series. The
effect is dependent mainly on the ratio of the smaller
side of the phase screen to the outer scale length, as
shown by the test case of Fig. 5~b!, which was done
with an aspect ratio of 1:8 and with the smaller side
of the phase screen equal to the outer scale length.
The data for the three pupils are relatively good, with
some power excess at lower separations. These re-
20 July 1998 y Vol. 37, No. 21 y APPLIED OPTICS 4609

Fig. 4. Normalized phase variance over circular pupils of 200
FFT-based phase-screen simulations for square formats with ad-
ditional subharmonic phase screens and tip–tilt removal. There
is one sigma error bar, and the phase screen is 10 m 3 10 m and
128 3 128 pixels, with r0 5 0.1 m, infinite L0, and ten subharmon-
ics. The theoretical values are plotted by the solid line.
sults show that the phase variance over the pupil is
somewhat less critical than the phase-structure func-
tion versus the aspect ratio of the phase screen, even
though it is sensitive to its size in much the same way
as the phase-structure function.
Fig. 5. Normalized phase variance over circular pupils of 100
FFT-based phase-screen simulations for rectangular formats with
additional subharmonic phase screens. There is one sigma error
bar. The phase screens have ~1024 3 128! pixels, with r0 5 0.1 m,
L0 5 10 m, three subharmonics, and a size of ~a! 16 m 3 2 m, ~b!
80 m 3 10 m. The theoretical values are plotted by continuous
curves.
4610 APPLIED OPTICS y Vol. 37, No. 21 y 20 July 1998
4. Compensation for Aspect-Ratio Effects on the
Phase-Structure Function
A. Symmetrization of Fast-Fourier-Transform-Based
Phase-Structure Function
One simple, although only approximate, method of
compensation of the effects of the rectangular format
on the phase-structure function of FFT-based phase
screens is to weight the FFT spectrum properly.
The aspect ratio of the spectrum is controlled mostly
by the relative weights of the spectral power at spa-
tial frequencies f0,21 and f0,11 for the X axis and f21,0
and f11,0 for the Y axis. Setting the weights allows
the spectrum to be approximately symmetrized in the
region of interest at the center of the FFT-based
phase screen. The weights approximate the values
of the aspect ratio and its reciprocal at large aspect
ratios. However, it is convenient to optimize the
weights individually against the symmetry of the
phase-structure function, particularly at lower aspect
ratios and smaller outer scale lengths.
This technique was successfully applied to aspect
ratios from 1:2 to 1:32, with the results shown in Fig.
6. The isophotes of the phase-structure function im-
ages are approximately circular to ;60% of the cen-
tral region of interest. The improvement of
symmetry of the phase-structure function is clearly
evident in the corresponding X and Y sections. The
results for the aspect ratio 1:2, shown in Fig. 6~b!,
include a subharmonic component that does not add
further symmetry errors since it was computed by
means of the method described in subsection 4.B
without affecting the FFT compensation. The other
cases with aspect ratios of 1:4, 1:16, and 1:32 were
computed with no subharmonic contribution. The
results shown were obtained by individual optimiza-
tion, for each aspect ratio, of the square-root weights
applied to the terms of spatial frequency f0, 21, f0, 11,
f21, 0, and f11, 0 of the FFT spectrum.
B. Symmetrization of the Subharmonic Phase-Structure
Function
The spectral weighting method used for the FFT-
based phase-structure function could also be used
for the subharmonic phase-structure function.
However, it is possible to use directly a large square
subharmonic phase screen computed on a properly
reduced grid in a relatively shorter time and then
interpolate the result back to the original FFT-
based phase-screen format. The phase-structure
function results are symmetric, which is due to the
symmetry of the phase screen, whereas the comput-
ing time remains short since the Fourier series
transform is computed on a small support array.
This is possible because the subharmonic phase
screen contains only spatial periods that are longer
than the FFT-based phase screen, thus allowing a
sampling step that is much larger than the corre-
sponding step for the FFT-based phase screen.
The formulation of Johansson and Gavel6 of the
 Fig. 6. Symmeterized phase-structure functions of
FFT-based phase-screen simulations for rectangular
formats with additional subharmonic phase screens
and compensation for the aspect-ratio effects on the
FFT-based phase-structure function. Wx and Wy are
the X and the Y square-root spectral weights used for
the compensation. The phase screens are ~a!, ~b! 4 m
3 2 m and 256 3 128 pixels, with three subharmon-
ics; ~c!, ~d! 64 m 3 16 m and 512 3 128 pixels, with no
subharmonics; ~e!, ~f ! 256 m 3 16 m and 2048 3 128
pixels, with no subharmonics; ~g!, ~h! 512 m 3 16 m
and 4096 3 128 pixels, with no subharmonics. In all
cases r0 5 0.1 m, L0 5 30 m, and NG 5 8. All images
show the central region of 256 3 128 pixels rebinned
to 128 3 64 pixels in the reproduction. DFFT marks
the FFT-based phase-structure function image and
DFFT~x! and DFFT~ y! are its X and Y sections, re-
spectively, DLF, DLF~x!, and DLF~ y! do the same for
the subharmonic phase screen, D~x! is the X section
of the overall phase structure function sum of
DFFT~x! and DLF~x!, D~ y! is the Y-section sum of
DFFT~ y! and DLF~ y!, and D Von Karman is the the-
oretical phase-structure function ~thick curve!.

subharmonic booster of Lane et al.13 given in Eqs. phase screens. The interpolation to the original
~3! and ~4! was then modified as follows: grid can be done by fast and memory-effective bi-
Np
linear algorithms without substantial losses of ac-
1 1
fLFG
rs 5 ( ( (
p51 m9521 n9521
LF
hm9n9 LFG
f m9n9
curacy.
The results obtained with this method are shown
in Fig. 7. There is evident improvement compared
3 exp@i2p32p~m9iyNx 1 n9jyNx!#, (12)
with the corresponding data of Fig. 2. The iso-
where i 5 2Nxy2 1 r~NyyNG!, j 5 2Nyy2 1 s~NyyNG!, photes of the subharmonic phase-structure function
and image shown in Fig. 7~a! are circular and the X and
the Y sections shown in Fig. 7~b! overlap. The
LFG
f m9n9 5 0.15132G21 25y6 2p
x r0 3 @~32pm9yGx!2 truncation evident at lower values of the separation
is due to the use of a bilinear interpolator to restore
1 ~32pn9yGx!2 1 L22
0 #
211y12
, (13)
the original format. This effect is quite small, as
where fLFG
rs , @r 5 0, NG~NxyNy!, s 5 0, NG# is the
one can see by comparison with the values com-
reduced-grid subharmonic phase screen and ~NG 1 puted with the standard formulation and is of little
1! is the number of samples in the smaller side of practical importance. If wanted, such a distortion
the rectangular subharmonic phase screen on the can be minimized by an increase in the value of NG
reduced grid. The relative gain in computing time or by use of a bicubic or two-dimensional spline
approximates @Nyy~NG 1 1!#2. A typical value NG interpolator at the cost of some extra computing
5 8 yields large gains, even for moderately large time.

20 July 1998 y Vol. 37, No. 21 y APPLIED OPTICS 4611

Fig. 7. Symmetrized phase-structure function of the subhar-
monic phase screen with compensation for the aspect-ratio effects.
The phase screen is 8 m 3 4 m and 512 3 256 pixels, with r0 5 0.1
m, L0 5 10 m, three subharmonics, and NG 5 8. ~a! Phase-
structure function image ~DLF! of the subharmonic phase screen
rebinned to 128 3 64 pixels in the reproduction, ~b! X and Y
sections form the center of the phase-structure function of the
subharmonic phase screen. DLF~x! and DLF~ y! are the X and Y
sections of DLF, which overlap in the figure. The radial section of
the phase-structure function of the subharmonic phase screen at
nominal FFT resolution is plotted by the dotted curve.
C. Phase Variance over the Pupil for Symmetrized
Phase-Structure Functions
The symmetrization of the phase-structure function
in the case of rectangular phase screens improves the
accuracy of the phase variance over the pupil, as
shown in Fig. 8. The data of Fig. 8~a! can be directly
compared with those of Fig. 5~a!. The improvement
is evident, even if not particularly large, because of
the low ratio of the smaller side of the screen size to
the outer scale length, equal to 0.2. However, the
data for the center pupil now become close to theory
and the dispersion of the data of the three pupils is
clearly smaller. The data of Fig. 8~b! are good and
fully comparable with the data of Fig. 5~b! in the
same range of separations, but with a ratio of the
smaller side of the screen size to the outer scale
length of only 0.4, against the value of 1.0 of Fig. 5~b!.
This gain is due to the positive effects of the symme-
trization of the phase-structure function on the phase
variance over a pupil.
5. Conclusions
The accuracy of the phase-structure function and the
phase variance over the pupil of FFT-based simula-
tions of large atmospheric wave fronts with a von
Kármán turbulence spectrum depends on the ratio of
the phase-screen size to the outer scale length, as
already known, and also for rectangular formats on
the aspect ratio of the phase screen. The undersam-
pling of the lower-spatial-frequency range of the at-
4612 APPLIED OPTICS y Vol. 37, No. 21 y 20 July 1998
Fig. 8. Normalized phase variance over circular pupils of 100
FFT-based phase-screen simulations for rectangular formats with
additional subharmonic phase screens and compensation for the
aspect-ratio effects on the phase-structure function. There is one
sigma error bar. Wx and Wy are the X and the Y square-root
spectral weights used for the compensation. The phase screens
are ~a! 16 m 3 2 m and 1024 3 128 pixels, with r0 5 0.1 m, L0 5
10 m, three subharmonics, and NG 5 8; ~b! 32 m 3 4 m and 1024 3
128 pixels, with r0 5 0.1 m, L0 5 10 m, one subharmonic, and NG
5 8. The theoretical values are plotted by the continuous curves.
mospheric turbulence intrinsic to the FFT-based
phase-screen simulators plays a minor role for the
large formats typical of the simulation of a long time
series of speckles from large telescopes on square
formats, whereas this is true only in the average
sense for rectangular formats. The use of a subhar-
monic phase-screen booster might improve the accu-
racy of the simulation to acceptable levels for outer
scale lengths much larger than the phase screen or its
smaller side for rectangular formats.
The rectangular formats force an asymmetry pro-
portional to the aspect ratio on the phase-structure
function and smaller distortions on the phase vari-
ance over a pupil. This effect could limit the use of
long and narrow FFT-based phase screens to only
lower aspect ratios. However, the aspect-ratio-
dependent asymmetry of the phase-structure func-
tion can be compensated for by weighting the FFT
spectrum in the FFT-based phase-screen simulator
and use of a fast symmetrized subharmonic phase-
screen booster. This asymmetry compensation
method achieves a running compromise between per-
formance and computer resources for the generation
of a long time series of speckles from simulated
single-layer atmospheric wave fronts with a large
rectangular format.
This study was supported by a research contract of
Università di Trieste, Dipartimento di Astronomia.
C. Morossi of Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste
contributed extremely useful discussions and criti-
cism on the phase-variance analysis. The current
version of this paper relied heavily on the thorough
analysis of the original manuscript and the detailed
suggestions of the anonymous referees, gratefully ac-
knowledged here for their help.
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