Interferometers and Aperture Synthesis

Abstract

Using diffraction theory we have shown that the angular resolution of a radio telescope is δ ~ λ/D where δ is the smallest angular separation which two point sources can have in order to be recognized as separate objects, λ is the wavelength of the radiation received, and D is the diameter of the telescope. A numerical factor of order unity depends on the details of the telescope construction. In order to improve this angular resolution, for a given wavelength, the diameter D of the telescope must be increased. Materials limit the size of a single telescope to ~300 m.KeywordsWave FieldMaximun Entropy Deconvolution MethodBaseline VectorVery Large ArrayAperture SynthesisThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.