Random Numbers from Astronomical Imaging

Abstract

This article describes a method to turn astronomical imaging into a random number generator by using the positions of incident cosmic rays and hot pixels to generate bit streams. We subject the resultant bit streams to a battery of standard benchmark statistical tests for randomness and show that these bit streams are statistically the same as a perfect random bit stream. Strategies for improving and building upon this method are outlined.

9 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in PASA

References in corpus (1)

• Inter-cluster Filaments of Galaxies Programme: Pilot Study Survey and Results

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Evaluation of cosmic ray rejection algorithms on single-shot exposures
• Astronomical random numbers for quantum foundations experiments
• Pulling out Threads from the Cosmic Tapestry: Defining Filaments of Galaxies