The Black Hole Explorer (BHEX) mission will enable the study of the fine photon ring structure, aiming to reveal the clear universal signatures of multiple photon orbits and true tests of general relativity, while also giving astronomers access to a much greater population of black hole shadows. Spacecraft orbits can sample interferometric Fourier spacings that are inaccessible from the ground, providing unparalleled angular resolution for the most detailed spatial studies of accretion and photon orbits and better time resolution. The BHEX mission concept provides space Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) at submillimeter wavelengths measurements to study black holes in coordination with the Event Horizon Telescope and other radio telescopes. This report presents the BHEX engineering goals, objectives and TRL analysis for a selection of the BHEX subsystems. This work aims to lay some of the groundwork for a near-term Explorers class mission proposal.
We present the Black Hole Explorer (BHEX), a mission that will produce the sharpest images in the history of astronomy by extending submillimeter Very-Long-Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) to space. BHEX will discover and measure the bright and narrow “photon ring” that is predicted to exist in images of black holes, produced from light that has orbited the black hole before escaping. This discovery will expose universal features of a black hole’s spacetime that are distinct from the complex astrophysics of the emitting plasma, allowing the first direct measurements of a supermassive black hole’s spin. In addition to studying the properties of the nearby supermassive black holes M87∗ and Sgr A∗ , BHEX will measure the properties of dozens of additional supermassive black holes, providing crucial insights into the processes that drive their creation and growth. BHEX will also connect these supermassive black holes to their relativistic jets, elucidating the power source for the brightest and most efficient engines in the universe. BHEX will address fundamental open questions in the physics and astrophysics of black holes that cannot be answered without submillimeter space VLBI. The mission is enabled by recent technological breakthroughs, including the development of ultra-high-speed downlink using laser communications, and it leverages billions of dollars of existing ground infrastructure. We present the motivation for BHEX, its science goals and associated requirements, and the pathway to launch within the next decade.
The Event Horizon Explorer (EHE) is a mission concept to extend the Event Horizon Telescope via an additional space-based node. We provide highlights and overview of a concept study to explore the feasibility of such a mission. We present science goals and objectives, which include studying the immediate environment around supermassive black holes, and focus on critical enabling technologies and engineering challenges. We provide an assessment of their technological readiness and overall suitability for a NASA Medium Explorer (MIDEX) class mission.
The surface flatness of transparent plates is frequently tested in Fizeau and Twyman-Green interferometers. In case of quasi-parallel plates, however, a common problem is the additional reflection from the plate rear surface and the occurence of three-beam interference. Conventional methods of interferogram analysis such as temporal phase shifting or Fourier transform fail when the three overlapping fringe sets are present in the image. Our method of deriving optical parameters of the plate requires recording two interferograms: a two-beam interferogram without a reference beam and the three-beam interference one. The images are processed using single-frame techniques only and information about shape of both surfaces and optical thickness variations of the plate is retrieved. Unwanted parasitic fringes introduced by the glass plate protecting the CCD matrix in the camera are also handled using recently developed special smoothing technique. The proposed method is based on algorithmic solution and does not require modification of a sample or the optical setup. The measurement procedure and the detailed image processing path will be presented on the example of quasi-parallel plate interferograms recorded in the Twyman-Green setup.
We discuss a recently proposed method of the implicit smoothing splines in the context of the interferometric fringe pattern processing. The algorithm extends classic smoothing spline method to the case of the measurements being in some non-trivial functional relation to the estimated distribution, i.e., to the case of the implicitly given data. This is the case of the phase estimation based on the intensity of the related fringe pattern. While there are certain preprocessing complications involved in the application of the implicit smoothing splines, the method offers very accurate continuous (unwrapped) phase estimation and outperforms well-established fringe pattern analysis tools. In this paper we present theoretical background of the implicit smoothing splines as well as numerical results related to their application to the fringe pattern phase estimation problem.
Single-frame fringe pattern processing and analysis is an important task of optical interferometry, structural illumination
and moiré techniques. In this contribution we present several algorithmic solutions based on the notion of Hilbert-Huang
transform consisting of empirical mode decomposition algorithm and Hilbert spectral analysis. EMD adaptively dissects
a meaningful number of intrinsic mode functions from the analyzed pattern. Appropriately managing this set of functions
results in a powerful fringe processing tool. We describe in detail especially tailored manners proposed to extend the EMD
algorithm to 2D and perform Hilbert-transform-aided efficient fringe pattern denoising, detrending and amplitude/phase
demodulation.
We propose a 2D generalization to the midpoint-based empirical mode decomposition algorithm (MBEMD). Unlike with the regular bidimensional empirical mode decomposition algorithm (BEMD), we do not interpolate the upper and lower envelopes, but rather directly find the mean envelope, utilizing well defined points between two extrema of different kind (midpoints). This approach has several advantages such as improved spectral selectivity and better time performance over the regular BEMD process. The MBEMD algorithm is then applied to the task of the interferometric fringe pattern analysis, to identify its distinct components. This allows to separate the oscillatory pattern component, which is of interest, from the background, noise and possibly other spurious interferometric patterns. In result, the phase demodulation error is reduced. Flexibility of the adaptive method allows for processing correlation fringe patterns met in the digital speckle pattern interferometry as well as the regular interferometric fringe patterns without any special tuning of the algorithm.
We demonstrate the powerful new algorithm for automatic analysis of the electron diffraction patterns in the microscopic images. The method can be outlined as follows: (1) filtration of the image in the Fourier domain (2) normalization with the bidimensional Hilbert transform, so-called vortex transform (3) local diffraction pattern frequency estimation by the finite difference operator (4) morphological filtration for the elements segmentation (5) construction of the sample features statistics. With sufficient quality maintained and vastly reduced time necessary for the computations, the method is superior to previously considered wavelet-based approach for the automatic analysis of large data sets.
We present a novel application of the continuous wavelet transform (CWT) for quantitative analysis of electron
diffraction fringe patterns for material science research. With this method unsupervised analysis of large data sets can be performed, to determine statistical distribution of fringe periods, corresponding to the spacing between the planes in the atomic lattice. It is more robust and less time consuming than typical manual approach. Obtained information can be further utilized for characterization and identification of the crystallographic structures present in the sample. The proposed method is applied to analysis of high resolution transmission electron microscope (HRTEM) images of Iridium-Zinc-Silicon-Oxide thin films, which reveal nanocrystallic structures dispersed in an amorphous matrix.
Two single-image methods designed for a fringe image modulation extraction are described. They are based on
the two dimensional continuous wavelet transformation (2D CWT) and two dimensional Hilbert transform (2D
HT) aided by bidimensional empirical mode decomposition (BEMD). Optimization of the proposed methods is
described. Numerical simulations designed to test their performance are presented. Both approaches applicability
is verified by processing experimental resonance vibration patterns acquired using time-average interferometry.
Obtained results agree well with ones obtained using temporal phase shifting method.
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