Electromagnetic diffraction efficiencies for plane reflection diffraction gratings

Results are presented of research activities on holographic grating research. A large portion of this work was performed using rigorous vector diffraction theory, therefore, the necessary theory has been included in this report. The diffraction efficiency studies were continued using programs based on a rigorous theory. The simultaneous occurrence of high diffraction efficiencies and the phenomenon of double Wood's anomalies is demonstrated along with a graphic method for determining the necessary grating parameters. Also, an analytical solution for a grating profile that is perfectly blazed is obtained. The performance of the perfectly blazed grating profile is shown to be significantly better than grating profiles previously studied. Finally, a proposed method is described for the analysis of coarse echelle gratings using rigorous vector diffraction that is currently being developed

Electromagnetic diffraction efficiencies for plane reflection diffraction gratings

The theory and computer programs, based on electromagnetic theory, for the analysis and design of echelle gratings were developed. The gratings are designed for instruments that operate in the ultraviolet portion of the spectrum. The theory was developed so that the resulting computer programs will be able to analyze deep (up to 30 wavelengths) gratings by including as many as 100 real or homogeneous diffraction orders. The program calculates the complex amplitude coefficient for each of the diffracted orders. A check on the numerical method used to solve the integral equations is provided by a conservation of energy calculation

Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) analysis of the transmittance of off-axis energy due to scattering and diffraction

Stray light transmittance is analyzed. Mathematical models are evaluated. The results of scatter and diffraction are considered separately, and the combined transmittance values evaluated

On the theory of partial polarization and phase retrieval

In the study of polarization matrix methods have long been used. In Chapter I a detailed survey is given of the Jones method, the coherency matrix formalism and the Mueller method. In Chapter II an attempt is made to recast the whole approach to the theory of partial polarization into the language of an eigenvalue problem. It is assumed that the monochromatic eigenstates in the Jones method are known. The eigenvalue equation in the Mueller method is then solved. A corresponding equation for the coherency matrix is formulated and solved. It is shown that when the eigenvectors of the instrument operator are orthogonal no more than two of the four solutions of the equation in the coherency matrix formalism commute with the instrument operator. The physical interpretation of the commutation relations is given. Then the case of the degenerate eigenvalues is studied and it is shown how a partially polarized field can also be an eigenstate of the instrument operator [TRUNCATED

Space-Time Approach to Scattering from Many Body Systems

We present scattering from many body systems in a new light. In place of the usual van Hove treatment, (applicable to a wide range of scattering processes using both photons and massive particles) based on plane waves, we calculate the scattering amplitude as a space-time integral over the scattering sample for an incident wave characterized by its correlation function which results from the shaping of the wave field by the apparatus. Instrument resolution effects - seen as due to the loss of correlation caused by the path differences in the different arms of the instrument are automatically included and analytic forms of the resolution function for different instruments are obtained. The intersection of the moving correlation volumes (those regions where the correlation functions are significant) associated with the different elements of the apparatus determines the maximum correlation lengths (times) that can be observed in a sample, and hence, the momentum (energy) resolution of the measurement. This geometrical picture of moving correlation volumes derived by our technique shows how the interaction of the scatterer with the wave field shaped by the apparatus proceeds in space and time. Matching of the correlation volumes so as to maximize the intersection region yields a transparent, graphical method of instrument design. PACS: 03.65.Nk, 3.80 +r, 03.75, 61.12.BComment: Latex document with 6 fig

The Michelson Stellar Interferometer Error Budget for Triple Triple-Satellite Configuration

This report presents the results of a study of the instrumentation tolerances for a conventional style Michelson stellar interferometer (MSI). The method used to determine the tolerances was to determine the change, due to the instrument errors, in the measured fringe visibility and phase relative to the ideal values. The ideal values are those values of fringe visibility and phase that would be measured by a perfect MSI and are attributable solely to the object being detected. Once the functional relationship for changes in visibility and phase as a function of various instrument errors is understood it is then possible to set limits on the instrument errors in order to ensure that the measured visibility and phase are different from the ideal values by no more than some specified amount. This was done as part of this study. The limits we obtained are based on a visibility error of no more than 1% and a phase error of no more than 0.063 radians (this comes from 1% of 2(pi) radians). The choice of these 1% limits is supported in the literture. The approach employed in the study involved the use of ASAP (Advanced System Analysis Program) software provided by Breault Research Organization, Inc., in conjunction with parallel analytical calculations. The interferometer accepts object radiation into two separate arms each consisting of an outer mirror, an inner mirror, a delay line (made up of two moveable mirrors and two static mirrors), and a 10:1 afocal reduction telescope. The radiation coming out of both arms is incident on a slit plane which is opaque with two openings (slits). One of the two slits is centered directly under one of the two arms of the interferometer and the other slit is centered directly under the other arm. The slit plane is followed immediately by an ideal combining lens which images the radiation in the fringe plane (also referred to subsequently as the detector plane)

Optical Intensity Interferometry with the Cherenkov Telescope Array

With its unprecedented light-collecting area for night-sky observations, the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) holds great potential for also optical stellar astronomy, in particular as a multi-element intensity interferometer for realizing imaging with sub-milliarcsecond angular resolution. Such an order-of-magnitude increase of the spatial resolution achieved in optical astronomy will reveal the surfaces of rotationally flattened stars with structures in their circumstellar disks and winds, or the gas flows between close binaries. Image reconstruction is feasible from the second-order coherence of light, measured as the temporal correlations of arrival times between photons recorded in different telescopes. This technique (once pioneered by Hanbury Brown and Twiss) connects telescopes only with electronic signals and is practically insensitive to atmospheric turbulence and to imperfections in telescope optics. Detector and telescope requirements are very similar to those for imaging air Cherenkov observatories, the main difference being the signal processing (calculating cross correlations between single camera pixels in pairs of telescopes). Observations of brighter stars are not limited by sky brightness, permitting efficient CTA use during also bright-Moon periods. While other concepts have been proposed to realize kilometer-scale optical interferometers of conventional amplitude (phase-) type, both in space and on the ground, their complexity places them much further into the future than CTA, which thus could become the first kilometer-scale optical imager in astronomy.Comment: Astroparticle Physics, in press; 47 pages, 10 figures, 124 reference

Stellar Intensity Interferometry: Prospects for sub-milliarcsecond optical imaging

Using kilometric arrays of air Cherenkov telescopes, intensity interferometry may increase the spatial resolution in optical astronomy by an order of magnitude, enabling images of rapidly rotating stars with structures in their circumstellar disks and winds, or mapping out patterns of nonradial pulsations across stellar surfaces. Intensity interferometry (pioneered by Hanbury Brown and Twiss) connects telescopes only electronically, and is practically insensitive to atmospheric turbulence and optical imperfections, permitting observations over long baselines and through large airmasses, also at short optical wavelengths. The required large telescopes with very fast detectors are becoming available as arrays of air Cherenkov telescopes, distributed over a few square km. Digital signal handling enables very many baselines to be synthesized, while stars are tracked with electronic time delays, thus synthesizing an optical interferometer in software. Simulated observations indicate limiting magnitudes around m(v)=8, reaching resolutions ~30 microarcsec in the violet. The signal-to-noise ratio favors high-temperature sources and emission-line structures, and is independent of the optical passband, be it a single spectral line or the broad spectral continuum. Intensity interferometry provides the modulus (but not phase) of any spatial frequency component of the source image; for this reason image reconstruction requires phase retrieval techniques, feasible if sufficient coverage of the interferometric (u,v)-plane is available. Experiments are in progress; test telescopes have been erected, and trials in connecting large Cherenkov telescopes have been carried out. This paper reviews this interferometric method in view of the new possibilities offered by arrays of air Cherenkov telescopes, and outlines observational programs that should become realistic already in the rather near future.Comment: New Astronomy Reviews, in press; 101 pages, 11 figures, 185 reference

Planck scale still safe from stellar images

The recent paper of Lieu and Hillman [1] that a possible, (birefringence like) phase difference ambiguity coming from Planck effects would alter stellar images of distant sources is questioned. Instead for {\em division of wavefront} interference and diffraction phenomena, initial (lateral) coherence is developed simply by propagation of rays (cf. van Cittert-Zernike theorem). This case is strongly immune to quantum gravity influences that could tend to reduce phase coherence. The phase ambiguity, if actually present, could reduce any underlying polarization of the light rays.Comment: final version for CQ

Radio scintillation of gamma-ray-burst afterglows

Stars twinkle to the eye through atmospheric turbulence, but planets, because of their larger angular size, do not. Similarly, scintillation due to the local interstellar medium will modulate the radio flux of gamma-ray-burst afterglows and may permit indirect measurements of their angular sizes. The amplitude of refractive scintillation is of order ten percent at ten gigahertz unless the source size is much larger than the expected size, of order ten microarcseconds. Diffractive scintillation is marginally possible, depending sensitively on the source size, observing frequency, and scattering measure of the interstellar medium.Comment: 11 pages, LaTeX2e, requires elsart.cls. Submitted to New Astronom