A stochastic realization approach to the efficient simulation of phase screens

The phase screen method is a well established approach to take into account the atmospheric turbulence in astronomical seeing. This is of key importance when designing adaptive optics for the new generation telescopes, in particular when there is need to simulate long exposure phase screen sequence. Turbulence is characterised statistically. A novel approach is presented in this paper, to simulate turbulent phase, based on the stochastic realization theory, which allows to take into account the statistics to extend an existing phase screen in time. The method is consistent with recently presented techniques, and presents appealing properties in terms of accuracy in reconstructing the structure function with a consistent saving of memory.