Related papers: Absolute reflectance of a concave mirror used for …
Astrometric precision and knowledge of the point spread function are key ingredients for a wide range of astrophysical studies including time-delay cosmography in which strongly lensed quasar systems are used to determine the Hubble…
Optical beams and starlight distorted by atmospheric turbulence can be corrected with adaptive optics systems to enable efficient coupling into single-mode fibers. Deformable mirrors, used to flatten the wavefront in astronomical…
The 17m Imaging Air shower Cherenkov Telescope MAGIC (Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, La Palma, Canary Islands) has recently entered its commissioning phase. One of the main goals of the MAGIC telescope project is to provide an…
Optical alignment and testing of the Integrated Science Instrument Module of the James Webb Space Telescope is underway. We describe the Optical Telescope Element Simulator used to feed the science instruments with point images of precisely…
An antireflective coating presenting a continuous refractive index gradient is theoretically better than its discrete counterpart because it can give rise to a perfect broadband transparency. This kind of surface treatment can be obtained…
Time reversal mirrors work perfectly only for lossless wave propagation. Here, the performance of time-reversal mirrors is quantitatively defined, and the adverse effect of dissipation on their performance is investigated. An application of…
MAGIC, a system of two imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes, achieves its best performance under dark conditions, i.e. in absence of moonlight or twilight. Since operating the telescopes only during dark time would severely limit the…
Sensing and manipulating targets hidden under scattering media are universal problems that take place in applications ranging from deep-tissue optical imaging to laser surgery. A major issue in these applications is the shallow light…
Long cylinders, such as optical fibers, are some of the most widely used photonic devices. The radius and refractive index of these fibers are therefore fundamentally important parameters in determining their performance. We have developed…
Research on photonics and metamaterials constantly challenges our intuitive understanding of the behaviour of light. In recent years we have seen negative refraction, focusing of light by a flat slab, a ``perfect'' prism, and an…
A point spread function (PSF) describes the distribution of light for a pure point source in an astronomical image due to the optics of the instrument. An accurate PSF is key for deconvolution, point source photometry and source removal.…
Concentrated solar power is a promising technique enabling renewable energy production with large scale solar power plants in the near future. Estimating quantitatively the reflectivity of a solar concentrator is a major issue, since it has…
We consider the quantum radiation from a partially reflecting moving mirror for the massless scalar field in 1+1 Minkowski space. Partial reflectivity is achieved by localizing a delta-type potential at the mirror's position. The radiated…
In the future, optical stellar interferometers will provide true images thanks to larger number of telescopes and to advanced cophasing subsystems. These conditions are required to have sufficient resolution elements (resel) in the image…
We developed a formula for the law of reflection of a plane-polarized light beam from an inclined flat mirror in uniform rectilinear motion by a direct application of the Huygens-Fresnel principle. Applying the obtained formula and the…
On the basis of general theoretical results developed previously in [JETP 112, 246 (2011)], we analyze the reflection of quasiresonant light from a plane surface of dense and disordered ensemble of motionless point scatters. Angle…
The high chemical reactivity of strontium, which can opacify a viewport exposed to a strontium atomic source, is a concern for some atomic physics experiments where it is sometimes necessary to send a laser beam counter-propagating relative…
The light distribution on the focal surface of spheric mirrors designed for telescopes in the lens-less Schmidt configuration is calculated analytically using geometrical optics. This analysis was motivated by considerations of the design…
Cherenkov telescopes are also sensitive to the atmospheric fluorescence produced by the extensive air showers. However this contribution is neglected by the reconstruction algorithms of imaging air Cherenkov telescopes IACTs and wide-angle…
Detecting cosmic gamma rays at high rates is the key to time-resolve the acceleration of particles within some of the most powerful events in the universe. Time-resolving the emission of gamma rays from merging celestial bodies, apparently…