Numerical simulations of pinhole and single-mode fibre spatial filters for optical interferometers

We use a numerical simulation to investigate the effectiveness of pinhole spatial filters for optical/IR interferometers and to compare them with single-mode optical fibre spatial filters and interferometers without spatial filters. We show that fringe visibility measurements in interferometers containing spatial filters are much less affected by changing seeing conditions than equivalent measurements without spatial filters. This reduces visibility calibration uncertainties, and hence can reduce the need for frequent observations of separate astronomical sources for calibration of visibility measurements. We also show that spatial filters can increase the signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) of visibility measurements and that pinhole filters give SNRs within 17 per cent of the values obtained with single-mode fibres for aperture diameters up to 3 r ₀. Given the simplicity of the use of pinhole filters we suggest that it represents a competitive, if not optimal, technique for spatial filtering in many current and next generation interferometers.     

An active fiber sensor for mirror vibration metrology in astronomical interferometers

We present a fiber sensor based on an active integrated component which could be effectively used to measure the longitudinal vibration modes of telescope mirrors in an interferometric array. We demonstrate the possibility to measure vibrations with frequencies up to ⋍100 Hz with a precision better than 10 nm (© 2009 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Diffraction losses in ground-based optical interferometers

We present a numerical analysis of free-space propagation of the beams inside a long-baseline optical/infrared interferometer. Unlike the models of beam propagation used in most previous studies, our analysis incorporates the effects of atmospheric seeing on the wavefronts entering the interferometer. We derive results for the changes in throughput, coherence loss and fringe-detection signal-to-noise ratio arising from diffraction along the propagation path. Our results for conditions of moderate seeing show that although the flux throughput decreases with propagation distance for a given beam diameter, the fringe contrast increases at the same time. In this case it becomes possible for diffraction to increase the signal-to-noise ratio of the fringe measurements. Previous studies have only considered an arrangement where all the apertures in the beam-propagation system have the same diameter. If the light at the end of the propagation path is collected with a fixed size aperture, we find that in many cases the signal-to-noise ratio for fringe detection is maximized when the initial beam diameter is approximately 30 per cent smaller than the final collector diameter. We discuss the implications of our results in the context of future interferometer designs.     

Implementation of an optimized Cassegrain system for radio telescopes

We present the antenna design for a radio interferometer, the Arcminute Microkelvin Imager, together with its beam pattern measurement. Our aim was to develop a low-cost system with high aperture efficiency and low ground spill across the frequency range 12–18 GHz. We use a modified Cassegrain system consisting of a commercially available paraboloidal primary mirror with a diameter of 3.7 m, and a shaped secondary mirror. The secondary mirror is oversized with respect to a ray optics design and has a surface that is bent towards the primary near its outer edge using a square term for the shaping. The antennas are simple to manufacture and therefore their cost is low. The design increased the antenna gain by approximately 10 per cent compared to a normal Cassegrain system while still maintaining low contamination from ground spill and using a simple design for the horn.     

大口径离轴非球面镜预应力环抛方法研究

提出了一种加工离轴非球面的预应力环抛方法,基于预应力加工方法的基本原理,利用环抛机来磨制离轴非球面.设计了一套专门的加载装置,将拼接镜面中具有不同离轴量的非球面子镜转化成曲率半径相同的球面子镜进行磨制,可以在同一台环抛机上进行抛光.利用这种方法,花费连续40 h的时间,磨制了一块按照中国30 m极大口径望远镜(CFGT)主镜参数比例缩小的离轴抛物面,顶点曲率半径21.6 m,离轴量3.6 m,离轴口径为330 mm,最大非球面度为16μm.试验表明该方法效率高,适用于批量加工,特别是极大口径天文望远镜拼接主镜的大批量非球面子镜研制.     

Offline, multidetector intensity interferometers – II. Implications and applications

Intensity interferometry removes the stringent requirements on mechanical precision and atmospheric corrections that plague all amplitude interferometry techniques at the cost of severely limited sensitivity. A new idea we recently introduced, very high redundancy, alleviates this problem. It enables the relatively simple construction (∼1 cm mechanical precision) of a ground-based astronomical facility able to transform a two-dimensional field of point-like sources to a three-dimensional distribution of microarcsec resolved systems, each imaged in several optical bands. Each system will also have its high-resolution residual timing, high-quality (inside each band) spectra and light curve, emergent flux, effective temperature, polarization effects and perhaps some thermodynamic properties, all directly measured. All the above attributes can be measured in a single observation run of such a dedicated facility. We conclude that after three decades of abandonment, optical intensity interferometry deserves another review, also as a ground-based alternative to the science goals of space interferometers.     

Improvements for group delay fringe tracking

Group delay fringe tracking using spectrally dispersed fringes is suitable for stabilizing the optical path difference in ground-based astronomical optical interferometers in low light level situations. We discuss the performance of group delay tracking algorithms when the effects of atmospheric dispersion, high-frequency atmospheric temporal phase variations, non-ideal path modulation, non-ideal spectral sampling, and the detection artifacts introduced by electron-multiplying CCDs are taken into account, and we present ways in which the tracking capability can be optimized in the presence of these effects.     

A generalized measurement equation and van Cittert-Zernike theorem for wide-field radio astronomical interferometry

We derive a generalized van Cittert-Zernike (vC-Z) theorem for radio astronomy that is valid for partially polarized sources over an arbitrarily wide field of view (FoV). The classical vC-Z theorem is the theoretical foundation of radio astronomical interferometry, and its application is the basis of interferometric imaging. Existing generalized vC-Z theorems in radio astronomy assume, however, either paraxiality (narrow FoV) or scalar (unpolarized) sources. Our theorem uses neither of these assumptions, which are seldom fulfiled in practice in radio astronomy, and treats the full electromagnetic field. To handle wide, partially polarized fields, we extend the two-dimensional (2D) electric field (Jones vector) formalism of the standard 'Measurement Equation' (ME) of radio astronomical interferometry to the full three-dimensional (3D) formalism developed in optical coherence theory. The resulting vC-Z theorem enables full-sky imaging in a single telescope pointing, and imaging based not only on standard dual-polarized interferometers (that measure 2D electric fields) but also electric tripoles and electromagnetic vector-sensor interferometers. We show that the standard 2D ME is easily obtained from our formalism in the case of dual-polarized antenna element interferometers. We also exploit an extended 2D ME to determine that dual-polarized interferometers can have polarimetric aberrations at the edges of a wide FoV. Our vC-Z theorem is particularly relevant to proposed, and recently developed, wide FoV interferometers such as Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) and Square Kilometer Array (SKA), for which direction-dependent effects will be important.     

Φ1650mm口径反射镜的坦克链支撑研究

Phi 1650mm口径反射镜是某套大口径精密光学元件检测装置中的定标校正模块, 用于对检测光路中的缩焦透镜等光学部件进行定标. 反射镜口径越大, 由于自身重力引起的变形问题越严重, 面型精度受到的影响也越大. 对于Phi 1650mm口径反射镜, 系统要求的技术指标是面型误差的均方根(Root Mean Square, RMS)小于1/70波长(波长为\lk 632.8nm). 针对这块光轴始终处于水平状态的大口径反射镜, 提出了坦克链支撑方案, 并与传统的钢带支撑做对比. 对坦克链支撑方案进行有限元分析, 逐步确定了坦克链节数和中心距, 根据标准选取了型号C2162H的双节距大滚子坦克链. 基于赫兹接触理论, 对坦克链滚子与反射镜的边缘非线性接触进行了模型简化. 经过Zernike多项式拟合后, RMS为2.58nm, 满足设计要求. 坦克链支撑结构简单、成像质量好, 同时降低了反射镜的倾覆风险, 可靠性高.     

A New Method for Optimizing the Configuration of the Chinese Square Kilometer Array

KARST, the Chinese SKA concept, consists of some 30 individual FAST-type elements to be set up in a karst region of Guizhou Province. A crucial question is how to select 30 optimized sites from hundreds of candidates. Here we introduce a uniform weight method, which can pick out suitable sites on the basis of uniformity and completeness of the u-v coverage. In order to meet some special scientific goals, such as imaging extended sources, a modification of this method is also discussed. Although the method is specially designed for the KARST array, it could be useful for more general types of arrays.     

Estimating statistics of sky brightness using radio interferometric observations

Radio interferometers are used to construct high resolution images of the sky at radio frequencies and are the key instruments for accessing the statistical properties of the evolution of neutral hydrogen over cosmic time. Here we use simulated observations of the model sky to assess the efficacy of different estimators of the large-scale structure and power spectrum of the sky brightness distribution. We find that while the large-scale distribution can be reasonably estimated using the reconstructed image from interferometric data, estimates of the power spectrum of the intensity fluctuations calculated from the image are generally biased. This bias is found to be more pronounced for diffuse emission. The visibility based power spectrum estimator, however, gives an unbiased estimate of the true power spectrum. This work demonstrates that for an observation with diffuse emission the reconstructed image can be used to estimate the large-scale distribution of the intensity, while to estimate the power spectrum, visibility based methods should be preferred.With the upcoming experiments aimed at measuring the evolution of the power spectrum of the neutral hydrogen distribution, this is a very important result.     

Maximum-likelihood astrometric geometry calibration of interferometric telescopes: application to the Very Small Array

Interferometers require accurate determination of the array configuration in order to produce reliable observations. A method is presented for finding the maximum-likelihood estimate of the telescope geometry, and of other instrumental parameters, astrometrically from the visibility timelines obtained from observations of celestial calibrator sources. The method copes systematically with complicated and unconventional antenna and array geometries, with electronic bandpasses that are different for each antenna radiometer, and with low signal-to-noise ratios for the calibrators. The technique automatically focuses on the geometry errors that are most significant for astronomical observation. We apply this method to observations made with the Very Small Array and constrain some 450 telescope parameters, such as the antenna positions, effective observing frequencies and correlator amplitudes and phaseshifts; this requires only ∼1 h of CPU time on a typical workstation.     

基于天文开源软件的卫星干涉测量数据处理系统

VLBI (Very Long Baseline Interferometry)技术观测卫星需要对干涉测量数据进行相关和后处理,通过相关、时延校准、条纹搜索,最终得到卫星的基线几何时延.基于天文开源软件建立起一套卫星干涉测量数据处理系统.该系统可工作在实时和事后两种状态,实现相关、中性大气、电离层、钟模型以及仪器硬件的时延校准、条纹搜索、生成基线时延和时延率序列.使用该系统处理北斗GEO (Geosynchronous Earth Orbit)卫星的干涉测量试验数据,得到了精度在1–2 ns量级的卫星基线时延序列.     

The coupling performance of photonic crystal fibres in fibre stellar interferometry

Large mode area (LMA), single-mode photonic crystal fibres (PCFs) have the potential to provide significant instrumental advantages in fibre stellar interferometry, due to their broad-band attenuation spectrum, endlessly single-moded performance and very large core size. We investigate the theoretical performance of coupling the telescope point spread function directly into LMA PCFs. We find that a single LMA fibre can replace as many as three step-index fibres for atmospheric seeing characterized by   D _T/ r _o≥ 2  with approximately the same coupling performance and a slower feed from the telescope. This could lead to considerable simplification of broad-band fibre interferometers.