Optimal interferometric data acquisition and processing: towards 0.1% precision with the single-mode beam combiner VINCI

Pierre Kervella; Vincent Coude du Foresto; Damien Segransan; Emmanuel Di Folco

doi:10.1117/12.550789

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20 October 2004 Optimal interferometric data acquisition and processing: towards 0.1% precision with the single-mode beam combiner VINCI

Pierre Kervella, Vincent Coude du Foresto, Damien Segransan, Emmanuel Di Folco

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Proceedings Volume 5491, New Frontiers in Stellar Interferometry; (2004) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.550789
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2004, Glasgow, United Kingdom

Abstract

Though interferometric techniques are now used routinely around the world, the processing of interferometric data is still the subject of active research. In particular, the corruption of the interferometric fringes by the turbulent atmosphere is currently the most critical limitation to the precision of the ground-based interferometric measurements. In this paper, we discuss the data acquisition and processing procedures of the VINCI/VLTI instrument. Optimal data acquisition parameters and wavelets based processing allow us to remove a posteriori part of the data corrupted by atmospheric turbulence. A relative precision better than 0.1% on the instrumental visibility (for a 5 minutes observation) was already achieved on bright stars without fringe stabilization. Using a dedicated fringe tracker, an even better precision, of the order of a few 10^-4, appears to be within reach. However, we show in this paper that the calibration of the instrumental visibility measurements can easily be the source of significant systematic errors beyond this statistical precision.

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Pierre Kervella, Vincent Coude du Foresto, Damien Segransan, and Emmanuel Di Folco "Optimal interferometric data acquisition and processing: towards 0.1% precision with the single-mode beam combiner VINCI", Proc. SPIE 5491, New Frontiers in Stellar Interferometry, (20 October 2004); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.550789

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