Analytical Modeling of the White Light Fringe

Abstract

We developed analytical technique for extracting the phase, visibility and amplitude information as needed for interferometric astrometry with the Space Interferometry Mission (SIM). Our model accounts for a number of physical and instrumental effects, and is valid for a general case of bandpass filter. We were able to obtain general solution for polychromatic phasors and address properties of unbiased fringe estimators in the presence of noise. For demonstration purposes we studied the case of rectangular bandpass filter with two different methods of optical path difference (OPD) modulation -- stepping and ramping OPD modulations. A number of areas of further studies relevant to instrument design and simulations are outlined and discussed.

arXiv comment59 pages, 7 figures

References in corpus (2)

• The Palomar Testbed Interferometer
• Fringe Visibility Estimators for the Palomar Testbed Interferometer

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• The Laser Astrometric Test of Relativity (LATOR) Mission
• The Laser Astrometric Test of Relativity Mission
• Experimental Design for the LATOR Mission
• Relativistic gravitational deflection of light and its impact on the modeling accuracy for the Space Interferometry Mission
• Obervational Model for Microarcsecond Astrometry with the Space Interferometry Mission