Exoplanet Science Strategy

Exoplanet Science Strategy
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 187
Release: 2019-01-17
Genre: Science
ISBN: 030947941X

The past decade has delivered remarkable discoveries in the study of exoplanets. Hand-in-hand with these advances, a theoretical understanding of the myriad of processes that dictate the formation and evolution of planets has matured, spurred on by the avalanche of unexpected discoveries. Appreciation of the factors that make a planet hospitable to life has grown in sophistication, as has understanding of the context for biosignatures, the remotely detectable aspects of a planet's atmosphere or surface that reveal the presence of life. Exoplanet Science Strategy highlights strategic priorities for large, coordinated efforts that will support the scientific goals of the broad exoplanet science community. This report outlines a strategic plan that will answer lingering questions through a combination of large, ambitious community-supported efforts and support for diverse, creative, community-driven investigator research.

Astronomical Optics

Astronomical Optics
Author: Daniel J. Schroeder
Publisher: Elsevier
Total Pages: 367
Release: 2012-12-02
Genre: Science
ISBN: 032313856X

Written by a recognized expert in the field, this clearly presented, well-illustrated book provides both advanced level students and professionals with an authoritative, thorough presentation of the characteristics, including advantages and limitations, of telescopes and spectrographic instruments used by astronomers of today. - Written by a recognized expert in the field - Provides both advanced level students and professionals with an authoritative, thorough presentation of the characteristics, including advantages and limitations, of telescopes and spectrographic instruments used by astronomers of today

Astronomy at High Angular Resolution

Astronomy at High Angular Resolution
Author: Henri M. J. Boffin
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 284
Release: 2016-08-24
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3319397397

This book offers an essential compendium of astronomical high-resolution techniques. Recent years have seen considerable developments in such techniques, which are critical to advances in many areas of astronomy. As reflected in the book, these techniques can be divided into direct methods, interferometry, and reconstruction methods, and can be applied to a huge variety of astrophysical systems, ranging from planets, single stars and binaries to active galactic nuclei, providing angular resolution in the micro- to tens of milliarcsecond scales. Written by experts in their fields, the chapters cover adaptive optics, aperture masking imaging, spectra disentangling, interferometry, lucky imaging, Roche tomography, imaging with interferometry, interferometry of AGN, AGN reverberation mapping, Doppler- and magnetic imaging of stellar surfaces, Doppler tomography, eclipse mapping, Stokes imaging, and stellar tomography. This book is intended to enable a next generation of astronomers to apply high-resolution techniques. It informs readers on how to achieve the best angular resolution in the visible and near-infrared regimes from diffraction-limited to micro-arcsecond scales.

Diffraction-Limited Imaging with Large and Moderate Telescopes

Diffraction-Limited Imaging with Large and Moderate Telescopes
Author: Swapan K. Saha
Publisher: World Scientific
Total Pages: 633
Release: 2007
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 981270888X

This book deals with the fundamentals of wave optics, polarization, interference, diffraction, imaging, and the origin, properties, and optical effects of turbulence in the Earth's atmosphere. Techniques developed during the last few decades to overcome atmospheric image degradation (including passive methods, speckle interferometry in particular, and active methods such as adaptive optics), are highlighted. Also discussed are high resolution sensors, image processing, and the astronomical results obtained with these techniques.

Astrotomography

Astrotomography
Author: H.M.J. Boffin
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 451
Release: 2008-01-11
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3540453393

This comprehensive and unique reference work on astro-tomography is based on expanded and suitably edited contributions to the 1st International Workshop on Astro-tomography. The focus is on studying indirect imaging and subsequent reconstruction techniques with applications in all areas of observational astronomy, astrophysics and cosmology. Detailed subject and object indexes, together with a list of useful resources on the Internet, will help the reader to use this book in a most efficient way.

Astrophotonics

Astrophotonics
Author: Stefano Minardi
Publisher: VCH
Total Pages: 350
Release: 2012-04-04
Genre:
ISBN: 9783527411108

Written by well-known scientists in the field with vast experience in teaching astrophotonics, this is the first book to bridge astronomy and photonics for the benefit of developing new astronomical instrumentation. The textbook is clearly structured and covers four main methods relevant to observational astronomy: adaptive optics, photometry, interferometry and spectroscopy. It follows a progressive didactical path in photonics, starting from fundamentals of wave- and micro-optics and developing step-by-step the formalisms required for the treatment of optical multilayers, fiber optics and diffraction/holographic gratings. This approach allows students with a physics/engineering background to learn about the problematic of observational astronomy, while, conversely, students of astronomy are exposed to topics in modern photonics. Each chapter is divided into three main sections devoted to the discussion of astronomical concepts required to size an instrument designed for the particular method, the photonic concepts that most suit that instrument, and an analysis of existing, related photonic instruments. A set of exercises and a bibliography complete each chapter. Appendices include a short review of fundamentals of wave optics and photon detectors, plus an overview of project design and management using a real-life example of an astronomical instrumentation project. With its review of the latest instrumentation and techniques, this is invaluable for graduate and post-graduate students in astronomy, physics and optical engineering.

Optics in Astrophysics

Optics in Astrophysics
Author: Renaud Foy
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 438
Release: 2006-01-14
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1402034377

Astrophysics is facing challenging aims such as deep cosmology at redshift higher than 10 to constrain cosmology models, or the detection of exoplanets, and possibly terrestrial exoplanets, and several others. It requires unprecedented ambitious R&D programs, which have definitely to rely on a tight cooperation between astrophysics and optics communities. The book addresses most of the most critical interdisciplinary domains where they interact, or where they will do. A first need is to collect more light, i.e. telescopes still larger than the current 8-10 meter class ones. Decametric, and even hectometric, optical (from UV to IR wavelengths) telescopes are being studied. Whereas up to now the light collecting surface of new telescopes was approximately 4 times that of the previous generation, now this factor is growing to 10 to 100. This quantum leap urges to implement new methods or technologies developed in the optics community, both in academic labs and in the industry. Given the astrophysical goals and technological constraints, new generation adaptive optics with a huge number of actuators and laser guide stars devices have to be developed, from theoretical bases to experimental works. Two other newcomers in observational astrophysics are interferometric arrays of optical telescopes and gravitational wave detectors. Up-to-date reviews of detectors and of spectrographs are given, as well as forefront R&D in the field of optical coatings and of guided optics. Possible new ways to handle photons are also addressed, based on quantum physics. More and more signal processing algorithms are a part and parcel of any modern instrumentation. Thus finally the book gives two reviews about wavefront processing and about image restoration and deconvolution algorithms for ill conditioned cases.