Optical intensity interferometry through atmospheric turbulence

Tan, Peng Kian; Chan, A. H.; Kurtsiefer, Christian

doi:10.1093/mnras/stw288

Cited by 33 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…The filtered light is polarized by a first polarizing beam splitter (PBS), and distributed by a second PBS into a pair of actively quenched Silicon avalanche photodetectors (APD) with a timing jitter of about 40 ps (Tan et al 2016). Photodetection rates are balanced by rotating the first PBS which is preceeded by a half wave plate to maximize the count rates.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Characterization of very narrow spectral lines with temporal intensity interferometry

Tan,

Kurtsiefer

2016

Preprint

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Context. Some stellar objects exhibit very narrow spectral lines in the visible range additional to their blackbody radiation. Natural lasing has been suggested as a mechanism to explain narrow lines in Wolf-Rayet stars. However, the spectral resolution of conventional astronomical spectrographs is still about two orders of magnitude too low to test this hypothesis. Aims. We want to resolve the linewidth of narrow spectral emissions in starlight. Methods. A combination of spectral filtering with single-photon-level temporal correlation measurements breaks the resolution limit of wavelength-dispersing spectrographs by moving the linewidth measurement into the time domain. Results. We demonstrate in a laboratory experiment that temporal intensity interferometry can determine a 20 MHz wide linewidth of Doppler-broadened laser light, and identify a coherent laser light contribution in a blackbody radiation background. Conclusions.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Characterization of very narrow spectral lines with temporal intensity interferometry

Tan,

Kurtsiefer

2016

Preprint

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“…After some preparatory experimental activities carried out by some groups (Zampieri et al 2016;Tan, Chan, & Kurtsiefer 2016;Matthews et al 2018;Weiss, Rupert, & Horch 2018), new successful stellar intensity interferometry (SII) measurements a là Hanbury Brown and Twiss have recently been realized using the particle nature of light and modern fast single-photon counters. The first intensity ★ E-mail: luca.zampieri@inaf.it correlation measured with starlight from conventional optical telescopes since the historical experiments of Hanbury Brown and Twiss has been performed by Guerin et al (2017), and more recently by Rivet et al (2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stellar intensity interferometry of Vega in photon counting mode

Zampieri,

Naletto,

Burtovoi

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Stellar Intensity Interferometry is a technique based on the measurement of the second order spatial correlation of the light emitted from a star. The physical information provided by these measurements is the angular size and structure of the emitting source. A worldwide effort is presently under way to implement stellar intensity interferometry on telescopes separated by long baselines and on future arrays of Cherenkov telescopes. We describe an experiment of this type, realized at the Asiago Observatory (Italy), in which we performed for the first time measurements of the correlation counting photon coincidences in post-processing by means of a single photon software correlator and exploiting entirely the quantum properties of the light emitted from a star. We successfully detected the temporal correlation of Vega at zero baseline and performed a measurement of the correlation on a projected baseline of ∼2 km. The average discrete degree of coherence at zero baseline for Vega is < 𝑔 (2) > = 1.0034 ± 0.0008, providing a detection with a signal-to-noise ratio 𝑆/𝑁 4. No correlation is detected over the km baseline. The measurements are consistent with the expected degree of spatial coherence for a source with the 3.3 mas angular diameter of Vega. The experience gained with the Asiago experiment will serve for future implementations of stellar intensity interferometry on long-baseline arrays of Cherenkov telescopes.

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“…Dravins et al (2015) observed pinholes illuminated by scattered laser light in the laboratory and demonstrated that the image of a source can be reconstructed from | ( , )| 2 if the plane is densely sampled. Tan et al (2016) measured the temporal coherence function (intensity autocorrelation) | ( = 0, = 0, )| 2 , with being a time delay, of sunlight. Guerin et al (2017) measured the intensity autocorrelations in the light from three stars.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sirius: a prototype astronomical intensity interferometer using avalanche photodiodes in linear mode

Wagner

Trippe

et al. 2020

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Optical intensity interferometry, developed in the 1950s, is a simple and inexpensive method for achieving angular resolutions on microarcsecond scales. Its low sensitivity has limited intensity interferometric observations to bright stars so far. Substantial improvements are possible by using avalanche photodiodes (APDs) as light detectors. Several recent experiments used APDs in single-photon detection mode; however, these either provide low electronic bandwidths (few MHz) or require very narrow optical bandpasses. We present here the results of laboratory measurements with a prototype astronomical intensity interferometer using two APDs observing an artificial star in continuous (“linear”) detection mode with an electronic bandwidth of 100 MHz. We find a photon–photon correlation of about 10−6, as expected from the ratio of the coherence times of the light source and the detectors. In a configuration where both detectors are on the optical axis (zero baseline), we achieve a signal-to-noise ratio of ∼2700 after 10 minutes of integration. When measuring the correlation as a function of baseline, we find a Gaussian correlation profile with a standard deviation corresponding to an angular half-width of the artificial star of 0.55″, in agreement with the estimate by the manufacturer. Our results demonstrate the possibility to construct large astronomical intensity interferometers using linear-mode APDs.

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Optical intensity interferometry through atmospheric turbulence

Cited by 33 publications

References 46 publications

Characterization of very narrow spectral lines with temporal intensity interferometry

Characterization of very narrow spectral lines with temporal intensity interferometry

Stellar intensity interferometry of Vega in photon counting mode

Sirius: a prototype astronomical intensity interferometer using avalanche photodiodes in linear mode

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