Real-time Control Systems for a Ground-based Nulling Interferometer: Requirements and Configurations

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A stellar interferometer measures the degree of correlation between two (or more) optical signals by observing the modulation of the intensity due to the addition of the waves' electric fields as a function of phase. The resulting intensity will vary between a maximum (combining the signals with zero net phase difference) and a minimum (at 180 degrees phase difference). One mode of operation involves attempting to maintain an output near its minimum intensity point; this is known as nulling. If the interferometric mixing phase is thus adjusted so that a bright point source is minimized, then the light of a nearby (but interferometrically resolved) source will generally interfere at a phase other than 180 degrees, and thus be measurable with reduced contamination by light from the bright object. In the case of source photon noise limited detection, this will increase the detected signal to noise ratio. In a space interferometer, this therefore has the potential to dramatically improve the detectability of a faint object (such as a planet) which is very close to a bright host star. With a ground-based interferometer, at wavelengths shorter than about 5 microns, it would also be possible to exploit that principle to increase the SNR in observing light from a faint object.

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