Improving the precision and efficiency of an optical telescope array by the piecemeal method

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Authors: Jian Leng, Yi-Xin Shen, Zhou-Kai Cao, Xiangbin Wang
Cited by: 0

Abstract

Angular localization of remote optical objects is a fundamental challenge in fields such as remote sensing and astrometry. We propose the piecemeal method for telescope array, with explicit formulas showing strictly its key advantages: higher precision, efficiency and robustness, which are further confirmed by numerical simulations. Specifically, our method achieves a 10⁴ precision improvement with 10⁵ photon number reduction compared to existing telescope arrays, and achieves precision improvements of 10³ and 10² over the Gaia telescope and the ultimate quantum limit for incoherent imaging, respectively, under comparable photon numbers. We have also presented a reference-object-based implementation framework for our method that seamlessly integrates with existing optical interferometric systems.

Fields of Study & Subjects

Adaptive optics and wavefront sensing Astronomy and Astrophysical Research Astronomical Observations and Instrumentation

Publication details

Journal / source
Figshare
Publication date
1 January 2026