Related papers: Improving the astrometric performance of VLTI-PRIM…
Accurate pulsar astrometric estimates play an essential role in almost all high-precision pulsar timing experiments. Traditional pulsar timing techniques refine these estimates by including them as free parameters when fitting a model to…
The new Starlink V2 satellites incorporate improvements to the chassis brightness through dielectric mirrors, off-pointing solar arrays, and black paint on exposed components. For the general case in which the reflectivities are initially…
ASTROD I is a planned interplanetary space mission with multiple goals. The primary aims are: to test General Relativity with an improvement in sensitivity of over 3 orders of magnitude, improving our understanding of gravity and aiding the…
PRISM (Polarized Radiation Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission) was proposed to ESA in May 2013 as a large-class mission for investigating within the framework of the ESA Cosmic Vision program a set of important scientific questions that…
Astrometry, the precise measurement of star motions, offers an alternative avenue to investigate low-frequency gravitational waves through the spatial deflection of photons, complementing pulsar timing arrays reliant on timing residuals.…
Precision photometric calibration is key to a number of astrophysical research areas such as supernova cosmology and dark energy studies. In the age of large surveys, pushing the limits of photometry is a worthy challenge, with traditional…
Since its emergence two decades ago, astrophotonics has found broad application in scientific instruments at many institutions worldwide. The case for astrophotonics becomes more compelling as telescopes push for AO-assisted,…
As gravity is a long-range force, one might a priori expect the Universe's global matter distribution to select a preferred rest frame for local gravitational physics. At the post-Newtonian approximation, two parameters suffice to describe…
This paper presents a non-classic approach to narrow field astrometry that offers a significant improvement over conventional techniques due to enhanced reduction of atmospheric image motion. The method is based on two key elements:…
A Fast Ion Deuterium Alpha (FIDA) spectrometer was installed on MAST to measure radially resolved information about the fast ion density and its distribution in energy and pitch angle. Toroidally and vertically-directed collection lenses…
From 43GHz VLBA observations of the pair of radio sources 1928+738 and 2007+777 we have demonstrated the feasibility of precision phase-delay differential astrometric techniques at millimeter wavelengths. For a pair of sources with 5…
The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) has recently concluded a set of engineering flights for Observatory performance evaluation. These in-flight opportunities are viewed as a first comprehensive assessment of the…
RISTRETTO is the evolution of the original idea of coupling the VLT instruments SPHERE and ESPRESSO, aiming at High Dispersion Coronagraphy. RISTRETTO is a visitor instrument that should enable the characterization of the atmospheres of…
NEAT is an astrometric mission proposed to ESA with the objectives of detecting Earth-like exoplanets in the habitable zone of nearby solar-type stars. NEAT requires the capability to measure stellar centroids at the precision of 5e-6…
Cosmography is a model-independent phenomenological approach to observational cosmology, relying on Taylor series expansions of physical quantities as a function of the cosmological redshift or other analogous variables. A recent work…
The ALMA North American and European prototype antennas have been evaluated by a variety of measurement systems to quantify the major performance specifications. Nearfield holography was used to set the reflector surfaces to 17 microns RMS.…
We present an assessment of the accuracy of common operations performed in $21$-cm spectral line stacking experiments. To this end, we generate mock interferometric data surveying the 21-cm emission at frequency $1310<\nu<1420$ MHz…
ASTRODynamical Space Test of Relativity using Optical Devices I (ASTROD I) mainly aims at testing relativistic gravity and measuring the solar-system parameters with high precision, by carrying out laser ranging between a spacecraft in a…
For sensitive optical interferometry, it is crucial to control the evolution of the optical path difference (OPD) of the wavefront between the individual telescopes of the array. The OPD between a pair of telescopes is induced by…
We present our investigation into the impact of wavefront errors on high accuracy astrometry using Fourier Optics. MICADO, the upcoming near-IR imaging instrument for the Extremely Large Telescope, will offer capabilities for relative…