Related papers: Accurate seeing measurements with MASS and DIMM
The thermal emission of dust is one of the most important tracers of the interstellar medium: multi-wavelength photometry in the far-infrared (FIR) and submillimeter (submm) can be fitted with a model, providing estimates of the dust mass.…
This study introduces a novel method to investigate in-situ light transport within optically thick ensembles of cold atoms, exploiting the internal structure of alkaline-earth metals. A method for creating an optical excitation at the…
Precision astrometry offers a way to probe new physics. By measuring the angular position of light sources at unprecedented precision, astrometry could probe minuscule fluctuations of underlying spacetime. This work explores the possibility…
When observing from the ground one has to deal with the turbulence from the atmosphere and the turbulence caused by the telescope's surroundings. In order to find the best sites for future solar telescopes and develop multi-conjugate…
We report site testing results obtained in night-time during the polar autumn and winter at Dome C. These results were collected during the first Concordia winterover by A. Agabi. They are based upon seeing and isoplanatic angle monitoring,…
The angular size of a star is a critical factor in determining its basic properties. Direct measurement of stellar angular diameters is difficult: at interstellar distances stars are generally too small to resolve by any individual imaging…
The idea of using stellar photometry for atmospheric monitoring for optical experiments in high-energy astrophysics is seemingly straightforward, but reaching high precision of the order of 0.01 in the determination of the vertical aerosol…
The image quality budget of many telescopes can have substantial contributions from local seeing, both``mirror'' and ``dome'', which arise from turbulence and temperature variations that are difficult to quantify, measure directly, and…
We demonstrate a novel detection scheme for the orbital angular momentum (OAM) of light using circular plasmonic lens. Owing to a division-of-amplitude interference phenomenon between the surface plasmon waves and directly transmitted…
Accurate astrometry is a key deliverable for the next generation of multi-conjugate adaptive optics (MCAO) systems. The MCAO Visible Imager and Spectrograph (MAVIS) is being designed for the Very Large Telescope Adaptive Optics Facility and…
Extreme microlensing events, defined as events with maximum magnification $A_\max\gsim 200$ are a potentially powerful probe of the mass spectrum and spatial distribution of objects along lines of sight toward the Galactic bulge. About 75…
Large ground-based telescopes equipped with adaptive optics (AO) systems have ushered in a new era of high-resolution infrared photometry and astrometry. Relative astrometric accuracies of <0.2 mas have already been demonstrated from…
The detection and characterisation of extra-solar planets is a major theme driving modern astronomy, with the vast majority of such measurements being achieved by Doppler radial-velocity and transit observations. Another technique -- direct…
We analyse the implications of future observations of the CMB absolute temperature at centimeter and decimeter wavelengths, necessary to complement the accurate COBE/FIRAS data. Our analysis shows that forthcoming ground and balloon…
We investigate interferometric techniques to estimate the deflection angle of an optical beam and compare them to the direct detection of the beam deflection. We show that quantum metrology methods lead to a unifying treatment for both…
State estimation is challenging for 3D object tracking with high maneuverability, as the target's state transition function changes rapidly, irregularly, and is unknown to the estimator. Existing work based on interacting multiple model…
A wide range of techniques have been developed to search for particle dark matter, including direct detection, indirect detection, and collider searches. The prospects for the detection of neutralino dark matter is quite promising for each…
The Sky Brightness Monitor (SBM) is an important instrument to measure the brightness level for the sky condition, which is a critical parameter for judging a site for solar coronal observations. In this paper we present an automatic method…
The Beam Emission Spectroscopy (BES) turbulence diagnostic on MAST is to be upgraded in June 2010 from a 1D trial system to a 2D imaging system (8 radial \times 4 poloidal channels) based on a newly developed APD array camera. The spatial…
The optical turbulence conditions as measured between 2004 until end of 2008 above Cerro Tololo, their seasonal as well as nocturnal behavior are presented. A comparison with the MASS-DIMM system of the Thirty Meter Telescope site testing…