Related papers: Diffraction-dominated observational astronomy
The displacement of star images by atmospheric refraction observed by an Earth-bound telescope is dominated by a familiar term proportional to the product of the tangent of the zenith angle by the refractivity at the ground. The manuscript…
We review some aspects of the current state of data-intensive astronomy, its methods, and some outstanding data analysis challenges. Astronomy is at the forefront of "big data" science, with exponentially growing data volumes and data…
Detecting exoplanets and other faint sources of emitted and reflected light near a bright star requires deeply suppressing the starlight while efficiently transmitting the dim light from its surroundings. This suppression can be carried out…
In two-dimensional spectrographs, the optical distortions in the spatial and dispersion directions produce variations in the sub-pixel sampling of the background spectrum. Using knowledge of the camera distortions and the curvature of the…
The availability of a robust and efficient routine for calculating light curves of a finite source magnified due to bending its light by the gravitational field of an intervening binary lens is essential for determining the characteristics…
A long-held astronomical vision is to realize diffraction-limited optical aperture synthesis over kilometer baselines. This will enable imaging of stellar surfaces and their environments, show their evolution over time, and reveal…
Interfering liquid surface waves are generated by electrically driven vertical oscillations of two or more equispaced pins immersed in a liquid (water). The corresponding intensity distribution, resulting from diffraction of monochromatic…
High-dispersion coronagraphy (HDC) optimally combines high contrast imaging techniques such as adaptive optics/wavefront control plus coronagraphy to high spectral resolution spectroscopy. HDC is a critical pathway towards fully…
Direct detection of extrasolar planets will require imaging systems capable of unprecedented contrast. Apodized pupils provide an attractive way to achieve such contrast but they are difficult, perhaps impossible, to manufacture to the…
The frequency correlations of light in complex photonic media are of interest as a tool for characterizing the dynamical aspects of light diffusion. We demonstrate here that the frequency correlation shows a pronounced angle dependence both…
High resolution imaging is achieved using increasingly larger apertures and successively shorter wavelengths. Optical aperture synthesis is an important high-resolution imaging technology used in astronomy. Conventional long baseline…
In astronomy or biological imaging, refractive index inhomogeneities of e.g. atmosphere or tissues induce optical aberrations which degrade the desired information hidden behind the medium. A standard approach consists in measuring these…
We summarize some of the compelling new scientific opportunities for understanding stars and stellar systems that can be enabled by sub-milliarcsec (sub-mas) angular resolution, UV-Optical spectral imaging observations, which can reveal the…
We systematically investigate the error sources for high-precision astrometry from adaptive optics based near-infrared imaging data. We focus on the application in the crowded stellar field in the Galactic Center. We show that at the level…
The wave-particle duality of light introduces two fundamental problems to imaging, namely, the diffraction limit and the photon shot noise. Quantum information theory can tackle them both in one holistic formalism: model the light as a…
Diffraction tomography aims to recover an object's scattering potential from measured wave fields. In the classical setting, the object is illuminated by plane waves from many directions, and the Fourier diffraction theorem provides a…
Random scattering of light is what makes materials such as white paint, clouds and biological tissue opaque. We show that although light propagating in these media is diffuse, a high degree of control is possible as phase information is not…
Direct detection and spectroscopy of exoplanets requires high contrast imaging. For habitable exoplanets in particular, located at small angular separation from the host star, it is crucial to employ small inner working angle (IWA)…
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…
For more than a century and a half it has been widely-believed (but was never rigorously shown) that the physics of diffraction imposes certain fundamental limits on the resolution of an optical system. However our understanding of what…