http://arxiv.org/abs/2303.13265
Intensity interferometry correlates light intensities rather than amplitudes of individual telescopes to recover the source geometry. While intensity correlations can alleviate the technical challenges of amplitude interferometry, and thus enable the realization of larger baselines and therefore higher resolution in astronomical imaging, this comes at the cost of greatly reduced sensitivity. We report the observation of photon bunching in the light of $\alpha$ Lyrae (Vega), measured with a telescope of merely 0.5m in diameter (Planewave CDK 20). The entire measurement setup, including collimation, optical filtering, and detection, was attached directly to the telescope without the use of optical fibers, facilitated by the large area of our single photon detectors. After a total exposure time of 32.4h over the course of six nights, a correlation signal with a contrast of $(9.5 \pm 2.7) \cdot 10^{-3}$ and a coherence time $0.34 \pm 0.12$ps was recovered, fitting well to preceding laboratory tests as well as expectations calculated from the optical and electronic characteristics of our measurement setup.
S. Karl, S. Richter and J. Zanthier
Fri, 24 Mar 23
33/56
Comments: N/A