Monte-Carlo simulation of stellar intensity interferometry

Abstract

Stellar intensity interferometers will achieve stellar imaging with a tenth of a milli- arcsecond resolution in the optical band by taking advantage of the large light collect- ing area and broad range of inter-telescope distances offered by future gamma-ray Air Cherenkov Telescope (ACT) arrays. Up to now, studies characterizing the capabilities of intensity interferometers using ACTs have not accounted for realistic effects such as telescope mirror extension, detailed photodetector time response, excess noise, and night sky contamination. In this paper, we present the semi-classical quantum optics Monte-Carlo simulation we developed in order to investigate these experimental limi- tations. In order to validate the simulation algorithm, we compare our first results to models for sensitivity and signal degradation resulting from mirror extension, pulse shape, detector excess noise, and night sky contamination.

References in corpus (7)

• The First VERITAS Telescope
• Optical Intensity Interferometry with Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescope Arrays
• Off-Line, Multi-Detector Intensity Interferometers I: Theory
• Off-Line, Multi-Detector Intensity Interferometers II: Implications and Applications
• Interferometric Parallax: A Method for Measurement of Astronomical Distances
• Stellar Intensity Interferometry: Imaging capabilities of air Cherenkov telescope arrays
• The Next Generation of Photo-Detectors for Particle Astrophysics

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Optical aperture synthesis with electronically connected telescopes
• Measuring Temporal Photon Bunching in Blackbody Radiation
• Optical Multi-Channel Intensity Interferometry - or: How To Resolve O-Stars in the Magellanic Clouds
• Intensity Interferometry with Aqueye+ and Iqueye in Asiago
• Intensity interferometry: Optical imaging with kilometer baselines
• Stellar intensity interferometry over kilometer baselines: Laboratory simulation of observations with the Cherenkov Telescope Array
• Development of a Digital Astronomical Intensity Interferometer: laboratory tests with thermal light