Related papers: Introduction to pinhole astronomy
Although not designed as an astrometric instrument, Kepler is expected to produce astrometric results of a quality appropriate to support many of the astrophysical investigations enabled by its photometric results. On the basis of data…
Electromagnetic observations have been used over the past decades to understand the nature of black holes and the material around them. Our ability to learn about the fundamental physics relies on our understanding of two key ingredients in…
A modern elementary introduction to special relativity for advanced school children or first-year university students, in Russian. I try to demonstrate that relativity does not contradict common sense; on the contrary, it follows from…
Rayleigh's criterion for resolving two incoherent point sources has been the most influential measure of optical imaging resolution for over a century. In the context of statistical image processing, violation of the criterion is especially…
Light diffraction at an aperture is a basic problem that has generated a tremendous amount of interest in optics. Some of the most significant diffraction results are the Fresnel-Kirchhoff and Rayleigh-Sommerfeld formulas. These theories…
We discuss advantages of using non-classical states of light for two aspects of optical imaging: creating of miniature images on photosensitive substrates, which constitutes the foundation for optical lithography, and imaging of micro…
Direct detection of dark matter continues to elude scientists' many attempts to see it interact, and still to this day the only way we know it is there is through observed gravitational effects. The many search experiments are at the point…
The experimental shock wave, discovery in quantum systems is the important one through last years. This effect has several phenomenological explanations. It seems to us there is interesting, especially from the systematical point of view,…
The development of both special and general relativity is accomplished in a series of 6 papers using a simple approach. The purpose is to explain the how and why of relativity to a broad public, and to be useful for students of physics by…
Pupil-mapping is a technique whereby a uniformly-illuminated input pupil, such as from starlight, can be mapped into a non-uniformly illuminated exit pupil, such that the image formed from this pupil will have suppressed sidelobes, many…
Getting the mathematical rules for quantised black holes correctly is far from straightforward. Many earlier treatises got it not quite correctly. The general relativistic transformation linking the distant observer (who only detects…
The answers to fundamental science questions in astrophysics, ranging from the history of the expansion of the universe to the sizes of nearby stars, hinge on our ability to make precise measurements of diverse astronomical objects. As our…
We derive closed formulas for the mass and spin parameters of a Kerr black hole in terms of a minimal quantity of observational data: the red-/blue-shifts of photons emitted by massive particles (stars) moving on geodesics around the black…
The Sun is the most constrained and well-studied of all stars. As a consequence, the physical ingredients entering solar models are used as a reference to study all other stars observed in the Universe. However, our understanding of the…
In recent decades, the relevance of polarimetry in planetary sciences and astronomy has increased rapidly. Polarization is a fundamental property of light and can be modified by any scattering event. As such, polarization yields additional…
The empirical law of Gladstone-Dale is insufficient for high-precision studies using the refractivity of a gas: this is not exactly proportional to its density, and the gas may not be properly described as perfect. An optical Mariotte…
The familiar Newtonian version of the Rayleigh criterion demands that for dynamical stability the specific angular momentum should increase with the increasing circumferential radius of circular trajectories of matter. However, sufficiently…
The extreme conditions found near black holes and neutron stars provide a unique opportunity for testing physical theories. Observations of both types of compact objects can be used to probe regions of strong gravity, allowing for tests of…
The observation of the bending of light by mass, now known as gravitational lensing, was key in establishing general relativity as one of the pillars of modern physics. In the past couple of decades, there has been increasing interest in…
We propose a theoretical principle to measure the mass, spin and direction of spin axis of Kerr black holes (BHs) through observing 2 quantities of the spinning strong gravitational lens effect of BHs. Those observable quantities are…