Ultra-High-Resolution Astronomy with the Solar Gravitational Lens

Abstract

The solar gravitational lens (SGL) is a target-specific observatory: the Sun supplies the wave-optical element, while spacecraft provide occultation, annular photometry, sampling, metrology, and inverse reconstruction. We develop an observability framework for non-exoplanet SGL astronomy. Viability is set by image-plane scale, raster pitch, finite-source gain, source-to-background ratio, temporal coherence, PSF knowledge, calibration, metrology, and focal-line access. We separate the vector Poisson measurement operator from the scalar convolution used for benchmarks. Four analytic scenes are propagated and reconstructed: a solar analog and magnetic white dwarf at 10 pc, an M87*-scale millimeter ring/jet source, and a bright 0.1 AU protoplanetary subfield at 140 pc. Under stated kernel-mismatch, background, calibration-floor, support-mask, sampling, regularization, and imposed information-floor assumptions, the scalar reconstructions give SSIM values of 0.993, 0.918, 0.973, and 0.923. These metrics quantify scalar inverse conditioning, not delivered flight performance; FRC50, support-leakage, and information-floor sensitivity diagnostics expose the dependence on assumptions. Many self-luminous compact targets are not photon-starved relative to a reflected-light exo-Earth reference, shifting the dominant requirements to ring extraction, coronal subtraction, detector dynamic range, PSF knowledge, cadence, spectroscopy, metrology, scan overhead, and access. The strongest bounded cases are white-dwarf surface and magnetic mapping, nearby stellar surfaces, compact AGN/black-hole structure with long-wavelength instrumentation, velocity-resolved broad-line-region mapping, and planet-forming subfields. The priority enabling program is SGL transfer-function characterization: measuring solar-multipole, plasma, extended-Sun, and instrumental response needed for scientifically interpretable imaging.

40 pages, 13 figures, 11 tables

References in corpus (24)

• First M87 Event Horizon Telescope Results. I. The Shadow of the Supermassive Black Hole
• X-ray Properties of Black-Hole Binaries
• A Comprehensive Measurement of the Local Value of the Hubble Constant with 1 km/s/Mpc Uncertainty from the Hubble Space Telescope and the SH0ES Team
• First Sagittarius A* Event Horizon Telescope Results. I. The Shadow of the Supermassive Black Hole in the Center of the Milky Way
• First M87 Event Horizon Telescope Results. IV. Imaging the Central Supermassive Black Hole
• A population of red candidate massive galaxies ~600 Myr after the Big Bang
• Spectropolarimetry of Supernovae
• Pulsating White Dwarf Stars and Precision Asteroseismology
• Magnetic White Dwarfs
• Imaging the Surface of Altair
• Multiple Images of a Highly Magnified Supernova Formed by an Early-Type Cluster Galaxy Lens
• Bayesian Strong Gravitational-Lens Modeling on Adaptive Grids: Objective Detection of Mass Substructure in Galaxies
• No Sun-like dynamo on the active star $\zeta$ Andromedae from starspot asymmetry
• Gravitational Microlensing
• Image formation process with the solar gravitational lens
• Resolved imaging of exoplanets with the solar gravitational lens
• Image recovery with the solar gravitational lens
• A mission architecture to reach and operate at the focal region of the solar gravitational lens
• Imaging point sources with the gravitational lens of an extended Sun
• Imaging faint sources with the extended solar gravitational lens
• Imaging rotating and orbiting exoplanets with the solar gravitational lens
• A Mission to Nature's Telescope for High-Resolution Imaging of an Exoplanet
• Photometric Limits on the High Resolution Imaging of Exoplanets Using the Solar Gravity Lens
• Direct High-Resolution Imaging of Earth-Like Exoplanets