The discussion centers on the appropriate simulation of starlight for radio telescopes, specifically whether to model it as a TEM00 Gaussian beam or a plane wave. It is established that at astronomical distances, the wavefront from stars can be approximated as a plane wave due to the vast radius of curvature relative to the telescope size. The van Cittert-Zernike theorem confirms the spatial coherence of this wavefront, making it suitable for interference detection. Additionally, simulating starlight as a Gaussian beam is inappropriate due to the incoherent nature of starlight at shorter distances from the source.
PREREQUISITESAstronomers, optical engineers, and simulation specialists involved in radio telescope design and starlight analysis will benefit from this discussion.
Thank you! A gaussian beam can be assumed to be a plane wave when the distance it has traveled has become infinitely far since its radius of curvature increases proportionally to the distance it travels. Simulating a star as an infinitely far Gaussian beam in Zemax gives an awkward result though, I digress.blue_leaf77 said:At astronomically far distances, the wavefront from stars can be well approximated as being spherical. Since the size of radiotelescope is much smaller than the radius of the wavefront which impinges on it, the wavefront portion received by the telescope can further be assumed as a plane wave. This wave will also be spatially coherent, as granted by van Cittert-Zernike theorem, which constitutes the fact that radiotelescope works (i.e. it does detect interference).
You're right. Thanks for pointing that out. Now Zemax doesn't really offer a plane wave simulation for long wavelength simulation. I need to find a new tool.blue_leaf77 said:I don't think it's a good idea to simulate the beam profile from stars to follow Gaussian nature, remember Gaussian optics was derived under the assumption that the beam is monochromatic and hence has perfect coherence everywhere. This is obviously not true in the case of starlight because the light emitted from stars is very incoherent at some distance near the star. The wavefront becomes coherent after it has traveled tremendous distance from the source star, e.g. on earth.