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Discrepancies between cosmological parameter estimates from cosmic shear surveys and from recent Planck cosmic microwave background measurements challenge the ability of the highly successful $\Lambda$CDM model to describe the nature of the…
We have built and tested a compact, low-cost, but very-high-performance astronomical polarimeter based on a continuously rotating half-wave plate and a high-speed imaging detector. The polarimeter is suitable for small telescopes up to ~1 m…
Astrocombs are ideal spectrograph calibrators whose limiting precision can be derived using a second, independent, astrocomb system. We therefore analyse data from two astrocombs (one 18 GHz and one 25 GHz) used simultaneously on the HARPS…
Microarcsecond (uas) astrometry is an indispensable technique to detect earth-like exoplanets, fully characterize exoplanetary orbits, and measure their masses --information critical for assessing their habitability. Highly accurate…
The surfaces of rotating stars serve as a window into their interiors, magnetic dynamos, and are important in other areas including exoplanet discovery and atmospheric characterization. While indirect techniques such as photometry and…
We demonstrate that microlensing can be used for detecting planets in binary stellar systems. This is possible because in the geometry of planetary binary systems where the planet orbits one of the binary component and the other binary star…
Theia is an astrometric mission proposed to ESA in 2014 for which one of the scientific objectives is detecting Earth-like exoplanets in the habitable zone of nearby solar-type stars. This objective requires the capability to measure…
A method is developed for fitting theoretically predicted astronomical spectra to an observed spectrum. Using a hierarchical Bayesian principle, the method takes both systematic and statistical measurement errors into account, which has not…
The Hubble diagram of type-Ia supernovae (SNe-Ia) provides cosmological constraints on the nature of dark energy with an accuracy limited by the flux calibration of currently available spectrophotometric standards. The StarDICE experiment…
The achievable level of precision on photospheric abundances of stars is a major limiting factor on investigations of exoplanet host star characteristics, the chemical histories of star clusters, and the evolution of the Milky Way and other…
Because of the recent technological advances, the key technologies needed for precision space optical astrometry are now in hand. The Microarcsecond Astrometry Probe (MAP) mission concept is designed to find 1 Earth mass planets at 1AU…
The Herschel Space Observatory is a corner stone mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) scientific program. With its spatial resolution, sensitivity and spectral range (60 to 670 microns) Herschel will provide astronomers with unique…
We describe the design, operation, and first results of a photometric calibration project, called DICE (Direct Illumination Calibration Experiment), aiming at achieving precise instrumental calibration of optical telescopes. The heart of…
For its physics program with a high-intensity hadron beam of up to 2e7 particles/s, the COMPASS experiment at CERN requires tracking of charged particles scattered by very small angles with respect to the incident beam direction. While good…
The Second Workshop on Extreme Precision Radial Velocities defined circa 2015 the state of the art Doppler precision and identified the critical path challenges for reaching 10 cm/s measurement precision. The presentations and discussion of…
Complex field measurements are increasingly becoming the standard for state-of-the-art astronomical instrumentation. Complex field measurements have been used to characterize a suite of ground, airborne, and space-based heterodyne receiver…
With telescope apertures becoming larger and larger, the deployment of large-field telescopes is becoming increasingly popular. However, optical path calibration is necessary to ensure the image quality of large-field and large-diameter…
The off-axis location of the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) is the chief (but not sole) cause of strong geometric distortion in all detectors: the Wide Field Camera (WFC), High Resolution Camera (HRC), and Solar Blind Camera (SBC).…
We present the software system developed to implement the Locus Algorithm, a novel algorithm designed to maximise the performance of differential photometry systems by optimising the number and quality of reference stars in the Field of…
Speckle Noise is the dominant source of error in high contrast imaging with adaptive optics system. We discuss the potential for wavefront sensing telemetry to calibrate speckle noise with sufficient precision and accuracy so that it can be…