Estimation-induced correlations of the Zernike coefficients of the eye aberration

The statistical properties of the estimated eye aberrations differ in general from the actual ones owing to the cross coupling and aliasing generated in the estimation process. In particular, the estimated Zernike aberration coefficients may show fictitious correlations that are not present in the incoming wavefronts. This fact should be taken into account when analyzing estimated aberration datasets, searching for correlations related to physiological eye features. We give an analytical model for this effect and evaluate its magnitude for a particular example, assuming that the true aberration statistics follows a Kolmogorov power law.