284 research outputs found
Direct imaging with highly diluted apertures. I. Field of view limitations
Future optical interferometric instrumentation mainly relies on the
availability of an efficient cophasing system: once available, what has so far
postponed the relevance of direct imaging with an interferometer will vanish.
This paper focuses on the actual limits of snapshot imaging, inherent to the
use of a sparse aperture: the number of telescopes and the geometry of the
array impose the maximum extent of the field of view and the complexity of the
sources. A second limitation may arise from the beam combination scheme.
Comparing already available solutions, we show that the so called
hypertelescope mode (or densified pupil) is ideal. By adjusting the direct
imaging field of view to the useful field of view offered by the array, the
hypertelescope makes an optimal use of the collected photons. It optimizes
signal to noise ratio, drastically improves the luminosity of images and makes
the interferometer compatible with coronagraphy, without inducing any loss of
useful field of view.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS.
Full-resolution version available at
http://www.obs-hp.fr/~lardiere/publi/2006-Lardiere-MNRAS.pd
Spatio-angular Minimum-variance Tomographic Controller for Multi-Object Adaptive Optics systems
Multi-object astronomical adaptive-optics (MOAO) is now a mature wide-field
observation mode to enlarge the adaptive-optics-corrected field in a few
specific locations over tens of arc-minutes.
The work-scope provided by open-loop tomography and pupil conjugation is
amenable to a spatio-angular Linear-Quadratic Gaussian (SA-LQG) formulation
aiming to provide enhanced correction across the field with improved
performance over static reconstruction methods and less stringent computational
complexity scaling laws.
Starting from our previous work [1], we use stochastic time-progression
models coupled to approximate sparse measurement operators to outline a
suitable SA-LQG formulation capable of delivering near optimal correction.
Under the spatio-angular framework the wave-fronts are never explicitly
estimated in the volume,providing considerable computational savings on
10m-class telescopes and beyond.
We find that for Raven, a 10m-class MOAO system with two science channels,
the SA-LQG improves the limiting magnitude by two stellar magnitudes when both
Strehl-ratio and Ensquared-energy are used as figures of merit. The
sky-coverage is therefore improved by a factor of 5.Comment: 30 pages, 7 figures, submitted to Applied Optic
Morphologically complex words in L1 and L2 processing: Evidence from masked priming experiments in English
This paper reports results from masked priming experiments investigating regular past-tense forms and deadjectival nominalizations with -ness and -ity in adult native (L1) speakers of English and in different groups of advanced adult second language (L2) learners of English. While the L1 group showed efficient priming for both inflected and derived word forms, the L2 learners demonstrated repetition-priming effects (like the L1 group), but no priming for inflected and reduced priming for derived word forms. We argue that this striking contrast between L1 and L2 processing supports the view that adult L2 learners rely more on lexical storage and less on combinatorial processing of morphologically complex words than native speakers.</jats:p
First images on the sky from a hyper telescope
We show star images obtained with a miniature ``densified pupil imaging
interferometer'' also called a hyper-telescope. The formation of such images
violates a ``golden rule of imaging interferometers'' which appeared to forbid
the use of interferometric arrangements differing from a Fizeau interferometer.
These produce useless images when the sub-apertures spacing is much wider than
their size, owing to diffraction through the sub-apertures. The hyper-telescope
arrangement solves these problems opening the way towards multi-kilometer
imaging arrays in space. We experimentally obtain an intensity gain of 24 +- 3X
when a densified-pupil interferometer is compared to an equivalent Fizeau-type
interferometer and show images of the double star alpha Gem. The initial
results presented confirm the possibility of directly obtaining high resolution
and high dynamic range images in the recombined focal plane of a large
interferometer if enough elements are used.Comment: 6 pages, LaTeX, standard A&A macros + BibTeX macros. Accepted for
publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics Supplement
Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics Simulator for the Thirty Meter Telescope: Design, Implementation, and Results
We present a multi-conjugate adaptive optics (MCAO) system simulator bench,
HeNOS (Herzberg NFIRAOS Optical Simulator). HeNOS is developed to validate the
performance of the MCAO system for the Thirty Meter Telescope, as well as to
demonstrate techniques critical for future AO developments. In this paper, we
focus on describing the derivations of parameters that scale the 30-m telescope
AO system down to a bench experiment and explain how these parameters are
practically implemented on an optical bench. While referring other papers for
details of AO technique developments using HeNOS, we introduce the
functionality of HeNOS, in particular, three different single-conjugate AO
modes that HeNOS currently offers: a laser guide star AO with a Shack-Hartmann
wavefront sensor, a natural guide star AO with a pyramid wavefront sensor, and
a laser guide star AO with a sodium spot elongation on the Shack-Hartmann
corrected by a truth wavefront sensing on a natural guide star. Laser
tomography AO and ultimate MCAO are being prepared to be implemented in the
near future
Direct imaging with highly diluted apertures. II. Properties of the point spread function of a hypertelescope
In the future, optical stellar interferometers will provide true images
thanks to larger number of telescopes and to advanced cophasing subsystems.
These conditions are required to have sufficient resolution elements (resel) in
the image and to provide direct images in the hypertelescope mode. It has
already been shown that hypertelescopes provide snapshot images with a
significant gain in sensitivity without inducing any loss of the useful field
of view for direct imaging applications. This paper aims at studying the
properties of the point spread functions of future large arrays using the
hypertelescope mode. Numerical simulations have been performed and criteria
have been defined to study the image properties. It is shown that the choice of
the configuration of the array is a trade-off between the resolution, the halo
level and the field of view. A regular pattern of the array of telescopes
optimizes the image quality (low halo level and maximum encircled energy in the
central peak), but decreases the useful field of view. Moreover, a
non-redundant array is less sensitive to the space aliasing effect than a
redundant array.Comment: 10 pages paper with referee in A&
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The role of L1 phonology in L2 morphological production: L2 English past tense production by L1 Spanish, Mandarin, and Japanese Speakers
This study considers the role of L1 phonological influence in L2 English past tense morphology production by native speakers of Spanish, Mandarin, and Japanese. While these L1s share similar phonological restrictions on consonant cluster formation needed for English past tense morphology, differences arise in L1 syntax (only Mandarin lacks syntactic past) and L1 prosodic structure (only Japanese has English-equivalent structure). Aggregate analyses indicate that an L1 English control group outperforms all L2 groups in oral suppliance of past tense morphology. Results therefore reveal that having the syntactic feature for past in the L1 does not translate into target-like performance and that L1 phonological restrictions alone cannot fully explain non-target-like performance. In light of previous and the current data sets, we argue that evidence from production of L2 English past tense cannot be used to adjudicate between Representational Deficit Approaches and Full Access Approaches, contrary to what has been argued previously
Production and processing asymmetries in the acquisition of tense morphology by sequential bilingual children
This study investigates the production and on-line processing of English tense morphemes by sequential bilingual (L2) Turkish-speaking children with more than three years of exposure to English. Thirty nine 6-9-year-old L2 children and 28 typically developing age-matched monolingual (L1) children were administered the production component for third person –s and past tense of the Test for Early Grammatical Impairment (Rice & Wexler, 1996) and participated in an on-line word-monitoring task involving grammatical and ungrammatical sentences with presence/omission of tense (third person –s, past tense -ed) and non-tense (progressive –ing, possessive ‘s) morphemes. The L2 children’s performance on the on-line task was compared to that of children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) in Montgomery & Leonard (1998, 2006) to ascertain similarities and differences between the two populations. Results showed that the L2 children were sensitive to the ungrammaticality induced by the omission of tense morphemes, despite variable production. This reinforces the claim about intact underlying syntactic representations in child L2 acquisition despite non target-like production (Haznedar & Schwartz, 1997)
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