Kernel phase interferometry is an approach to high angular resolution imaging which enhances the performance of speckle imaging with adaptive optics. Kernel phases are self-calibrating observables that generalize the idea of closure phases from non-redundant arrays to telescopes with arbitrarily shaped pupils, by considering a matrix-based approximation to the diffraction problem. In this paper I discuss the recent history of kernel phase, in particular in the matrix-based study of sparse arrays, and propose an analogous generalization of the closure amplitude to kernel amplitudes. This new approach can self-calibrate throughput and scintillation errors in optical imaging, which extends the power of kernel phase-like methods to symmetric targets where amplitude and not phase calibration can be a significant limitation, and will enable further developments in high angular resolution astronomy.
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