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Dainis Dravins

Dainis Dravins

Professor emeritus

Dainis Dravins

Toward a diffraction-limited square-kilometer optical telescope: Digital revival of intensity interferometry - art. no. 698609

Author

  • Dainis Dravins
  • Stephan LeBohec

Summary, in English

Much of the progress in astronomy follows imaging with improved resolution. In observing stars, current capabilities are only marginal in beginning to image the disks of a few, although many stars will appear as surface objects for baselines of hundreds of meters. Since atmospheric turbulence makes ground-based phase interferometry challenging for such long baselines, kilometric space telescope clusters have been proposed for imaging stellar surface details. The realization of such projects remains uncertain, but comparable imaging could be realized by ground-based intensity interferometry. While insensitive to atmospheric turbulence and imperfections in telescope optics, the method requires large flux collectors, such as being set up as arrays of atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes for studying energetic gamma rays. High-speed detectors and digital signal handling enable very many baselines to be synthesized between pairs of telescopes, while stars may be tracked across the sky by electronic time delays. First observations with digitally combined optical instruments have now been made with pairs of 12-meter telescopes of the VERITAS array in Arizona. Observing at short wavelengths adds no problems, and similar techniques on an extremely large telescope could achieve diffraction-limited imaging down to the atmospheric cutoff, achieving a spatial resolution significantly superior by that feasible by adaptive optics operating in the red or near-infrared.

Department/s

  • Lund Observatory - Has been reorganised

Publishing year

2008

Language

English

Pages

98609-98609

Publication/Series

Extremely Large Telescopes: Which Wavelengths? Retirement Symposium for Arne Ardeberg

Volume

6986

Document type

Conference paper

Publisher

SPIE

Topic

  • Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology

Keywords

  • stellar surface imaging
  • astronomical intensity interferometry
  • air Cherenkov telescopes
  • quantum optics

Conference name

Retirement Symposium for Arne Ardeberg on Extremely Large Telescopes - Which Wavelengths

Conference date

2007-11-29 - 2007-11-30

Conference place

Lund, Sweden

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1996-756X
  • ISSN: 0277-786X