Related papers: Aberration of starlight experiment
An intriguing, and possibly significant, anomalous signal in the Brillet and Hall experiment is contrasted with a simple first order test of special relativity subsequently performed to discount that signal as spurious. Analysis of the…
The radial velocity method for detecting extra-solar planets relies on measuring the star's wobble around the system's center of mass. Since this is an indirect method, we may ask if there are other dynamical effects that can mimic such…
Astrophysical measurements away from the 1 AU orbit of Earth can enable several astrophysical science cases that are challenging or impossible to perform from Earthbound platforms, including: building a detailed understanding of the…
The large-scale structure of the Universe is a rich source of information to test the consistency of General Relativity on cosmological scales. We briefly describe how the observed distributions of galaxies is affected by redshift-space…
Two methods of refractometry in reflected light from optical surface of samples are considered and studied experimentally. Methods are grounded on results of Fresnel theory of concerning light reflectivity at near normal incidence and…
We address the issue of relativistic stellar aberration requirements for the Space Interferometry Mission (SIM). Motivated by the importance of this issue for SIM, we have considered a problem of relative astrometric observations of two…
High-quality time series provided by space instrumentation such as CoRoT and Kepler, allow us to measure modulations in the light curves due to changes in the surface of stars related to rotation and activity. Therefore, we are able to…
The effects of telluric absorption on infrared spectra present a problem for the observer. Strong molecular absorptions from species whose concentrations vary with time can be particularly challenging to remove precisely. Yet removing these…
According to general relativity, a spinning body of mass M and angular momentum S, like a star or a planet, generates a gravitomagnetic field which induces, among other phenomena, also the Lense-Thirring effect, i.e. secular precessions of…
Parallax is the most important astronomical method for determining the distances from the Earth to nearby stars. We present two hands-on activities that explore the concepts and practice of parallax measurement. The first activity is a…
Physical properties of stars such as luminosity, surface temperature, distance, or mass are measured from observations. These physical properties are of paramount importance to understand how stars are born, live, and die in the universe…
A common problem in astronomy is the determination of the time shift between two otherwise identical time series of measured flux from a variable source, in short the determination of a time lag. Two examples of where this problem occurs…
We report the experimental demonstration of the induced polarization-dependent optical vortex beams. We use the Talbot configuration as a method to probe this effect. In particular, our simple experiment shows the direct measurement of this…
We present some theoretical results relevant to the direct dark matter detection experiments, paying particular attention to directional experiments, i.e. experiments in which, not only the energy but the direction of the recoiling nucleus…
Photometric redshifts are a key tool to extract as much information as possible from planned cosmic shear experiments. In this work we aim to test the performances that can be achieved with observations in the near-infrared from space and…
In this work we address the issue of peculiar velocity measurement in a perturbed Friedmann universe using the deviations from measured luminosity distances of standard candles from background FRW universe. We want to show and quantify the…
The serendipitous detection of stellar occultations by Outer Solar System objects is a powerful method for ascertaining the small end ($r \lesssim 15$ km) of the size distribution of Kuiper Belt Objects and may potentially allow the…
Star trackers are primarily optical devices that are used to estimate the attitude of a spacecraft by recognising and tracking star patterns. Currently, most star trackers use conventional optical sensors. In this application paper, we…
Atom and matter interferometers are precise quantum sensing experiments that can probe differential forces along separated spacetime paths. Various atom and matter interferometer experiments have been proposed to study dark matter,…
(abridged) Using the particularly long gravitational microlensing event OGLE-2014-BLG-1186 with a time-scale $t_\mathrm{E}$ ~ 300 d, we present a methodology for identifying the nature of localised deviations from single-lens point-source…