Simulations of partially coherent focal plane imaging arrays: Fisher matrix approach to performance evaluation

Abstract

Focal plane arrays of bolometers are increasingly employed in astronomy at far--infrared to millimetre wavelengths. The focal plane fields and the detectors are both partially coherent in these systems, but no account has previously been taken of the effect of partial coherence on array performance. In this paper, we use our recently developed coupled--mode theory of detection together with Fisher information matrix techniques from signal processing to characterize the behaviour of partially coherent imaging arrays. We investigate the effects of the size and coherence length of both the source and the detectors, and the packing density of the array, on the amount of information that can be extracted from observations with such arrays.

arXiv comment14 pages, 7 figures, submitted to MNRAS 7th March 2007

References in corpus (6)

• Karhunen-Loeve eigenvalue problems in cosmology: how should we tackle large data sets?
• Towards Optimal Measurement of Power Spectra I: Minimum Variance Pair Weighting and the Fisher Matrix
• SCUBA-2: a 10,000 pixel submillimeter camera for the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope
• Measuring $\alpha$ in the Early Universe: CMB Polarization, Reionization and the Fisher Matrix Analysis
• Measuring $\alpha$ in the Early Universe: CMB Temperature, Large-Scale Structure and Fisher Matrix Analysis
• Feasibility of Probing Dark Energy with Strong Gravitational Lensing Systems -- Fisher-Matrix Approach --

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Source detection in interferometric visibility data. I. Fundamental estimation limits