X-ray optical systems: from metrology to Point Spread Function [Cross-Listing]
One of the problems often encountered in X-ray mirror manufacturing is setting proper manufacturing tolerances to guarantee an angular resolution - often expressed in terms of Point Spread Function...
View ArticleAn expanded X-ray beam facility (BEaTriX) to test the modular elements of the...
Future large X-ray observatories like ATHENA will be equipped with very large optics, obtained by assembling modular optical elements, named X-ray Optical Units (XOU) based on the technology of either...
View ArticleAnalysis of microroughness evolution in X-ray astronomical multilayer mirrors...
Future hard X-ray telescopes (e.g. SIMBOL-X and Constellation-X) will make use of hard X-ray optics with multilayer coatings, with angular resolutions comparable to the achieved ones in the soft...
View ArticleMeasurements of wavelength-dependent double photoelectron emission from...
Measurements of double photoelectron emission (DPE) probabilities as a function of wavelength are reported for Hamamatsu R8778, R8520, and R11410 VUV-sensitive photomultiplier tubes (PMTs). In DPE, a...
View ArticleDetection of Noisy and Flickering Pixels from SWIFT BAT Event Data [Replacement]
This document presents novel algorithms for detection of noisy and flickering pixels from Burst Alert telescope event data and subsequent elimination of data from such pixels to create a filtered event...
View ArticleA compression scheme for radio data in high performance computing [Replacement]
We present a procedure for efficiently compressing astronomical radio data for high performance applications. Integrated, post-correlation data are first passed through a nearly lossless rounding step...
View ArticleBFORE: The B-mode Foreground Experiment
The B-mode Foreground Experiment (BFORE) is a proposed NASA balloon project designed to make optimal use of the sub-orbital platform by concentrating on three dust foreground bands (270, 350, and 600...
View ArticleMicrowave Loss Reduction in Cryogenically Cooled Conductors
Measurements of microwave attenuation at room temperature and 4.2 K have been performed on some conductors commonly used in receiver input circuits. The reduction in loss on cooling is substantial,...
View ArticleAn investigation of the Eigenvalue Calibration Method (ECM) using GASP for...
Polarised light from astronomical targets can yield a wealth of information about their source radiation mechanisms, and about the geometry of the scattered light regions. Optical observations, of both...
View ArticleThe lunar Askaryan technique: a technical roadmap
The lunar Askaryan technique, which involves searching for Askaryan radio pulses from particle cascades in the outer layers of the Moon, is a method for using the lunar surface as an extremely large...
View ArticleDesign of the iLocater Acquisition Camera Demonstration System
Existing planet-finding spectrometers are limited by systematic errors that result from their seeing-limited design. Of particular concern is the use of multi-mode fibers (MMFs), which introduce modal...
View ArticleNumerical modelling of the proposed WFIRST-AFTA coronagraphs and their...
The WFIRST-AFTA 2.4 m telescope will provide in the next decade the opportunity to host a coronagraph for the imaging and spectroscopy of planets and disks. The telescope, however, is not ideal, given...
View ArticleStar Cluster Properties in Two LEGUS Galaxies Computed with Stochastic...
We investigate a novel Bayesian analysis method, based on the Stochastically Lighting Up Galaxies (slug) code, to derive the masses, ages, and extinctions of star clusters from integrated light...
View ArticleOn Weak Lensing Shape Noise
One of the most powerful techniques to study the dark sector of the Universe is weak gravitational lensing. In practice, to infer the reduced shear, weak lensing measures galaxy shapes, which are the...
View ArticleLens Masses and Distances from Microlens Parallax and Flux
I present a novel method for measuring lens masses for microlensing events. By combining a measured lens flux with the microlens parallax vector pi_E, it is possible to derive the mass of the lens...
View ArticleCompton-Pair Production Space Telescope (ComPair) for MeV Gamma-ray Astronomy...
The gamma-ray energy range from a few hundred keV to a few hundred MeV has remained largely unexplored, mainly due to the challenging nature of the measurements, since the pi- oneering, but limited,...
View ArticleLyot-plane phase masks for improved high-contrast imaging with a vortex...
The vortex coronagraph is an optical instrument that precisely removes on-axis starlight allowing for high contrast imaging at small angular separation from the star, thereby providing a crucial...
View ArticleFine-pitch semiconductor detector for the FOXSI mission
The Focusing Optics X-ray Solar Imager (FOXSI) is a NASA sounding rocket mission which will study particle acceleration and coronal heating on the Sun through high sensitivity observations in the hard...
View ArticleDevelopment of a Precise Polarization Modulator for UV Spectropolarimetry
We developed a polarization modulation unit (PMU) to rotate a waveplate continuously in order to observe solar magnetic fields by spectropolarimetry. The non-uniformity of the PMU rotation may cause...
View ArticleRadio measurements of the energy and depth of maximum of cosmic-ray air...
We reconstructed the energy and the position of the shower maximum of air showers with energies $E \gtrsim 100\,$PeV using radio measurements performed with Tunka-Rex. A comparison to air-Cherenkov...
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