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Physics Astrophysics Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics

astro-ph.IM Watch Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics

Tuesday 11 August

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Cross-listed from astro-ph.GA

Mapping the Inner Milky Way with Infrared-Derived Distances to AGB Stars

Rajorshi Bhattacharya, Subhajit Kar, Loránt O. Sjouwerman et al. (+1 more)

The structure and evolution of the Milky Way (MW) can be traced with distance estimates to the evolved stellar populations in the inner galactic region. However, direct astrometric distances remain unavailable or highly uncertain for the majority of these sources due to instrumental limitations, large angular diameters, and complex variability. In this work, we develop a supervised machine-learning model to estimate statistical distances to oxygen-rich asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars selected from the AKARI mid-infrared survey. We build an XGBoost regression model that maps multi-band IR photometry to distance using a training set of AGB stars with previously derived SED-based distances achieving a mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) of 6% on an independent test set. Distance estimates for over 36,000 AGB sources are obtained within a 36% total error margin, greatly expanding distance coverage (0.5-20 kpc) for dust-obscured AGB populations in the Galactic plane. We find good agreement with reported distances for Galactic Mira variables and independent period-luminosity relations. Utilizing the expanded distance set, we further investigate the spatial distribution of Mira variables in the Galactic bulge and disk. Longer-period Miras preferentially trace the bulge's barred morphology compared to their shorter-period counterparts that populate the disk. We also find roughly constant, but differing, relative scale heights for the bulge and disk, with the bulge vertical dispersion about 30% larger. These findings show that IR photometry-derived statistical distances can recover large-scale Galactic structures and establish long-period Mira variables as efficient tracers of stellar populations in heavily obscured regions of the MW.
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All authors Rajorshi Bhattacharya, Subhajit Kar, Loránt O. Sjouwerman, Anupam Bhardwaj

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics

Comparing realtime optical gain measurement and methods on MagAO-X

Eden McEwen, Jared R. Males, Olivier Guyon et al. (+20 more)

A lingering technical challenge for pyramid wavefront sensors (PyWFS) is their change in response between calibration and correction residuals, a quantity known as optical gain (OG). Given the prevalent use of PyWFSs in current and planned high contrast adaptive optics (AO), understanding and reliably measuring OG for realtime control unlocks advanced correction and post processing techniques. The OG quantity as an unknown inhibits a system's ability to stably correct non common path errors, reconstructing wavefronts, and PSF reconstruction. This work compares kinds of optical gain measurement techniques on MagAO-X, a visible light extreme AO instrument on the 6.5m Magellan Clay telescope. We present a set of on-sky measurements of OG across three techniques: 1) An on-sky calibration that acquires OG per spatial mode, 2) realtime measurements of the instantaneous Strehl Ratio (SR) on the pyramid tip, and 3) realtime measurement of known, high-frequency probe signal on the WFS itself. We compare these on-sky results with performance diagnostics to asses how faithfully OG is returned. We conclude with future steps for active control of OG on MagAO-X.
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All authors Eden McEwen, Jared R. Males, Olivier Guyon, Sebastiaan Y. Haffert, Vincent Deo, Joseph D. Long, Logan A. Pearce, Laird M. Close, Warren B. Foster, Kyle Van Gorkom, Alexander D. Hedglen, Parker Johnson, Maggie Y. Kautz, Jay K. Kueny, Jialin Li, Joshua Liberman, Miles Lucas, Jennifer Lumbres, Avalon L. McLeod, Elena Tonucci, Katie Twitchell, Lauren Schatz, Alycia J. Weinberger

Monday 10 August

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics

Which is the best day of the week to submit to arXiv:astro-ph?

Chirag Sharma and Shantanu Desai

We examine whether the citations received by refereed astronomy papers vary systematically with the day of the week of their arXiv preprint release. We use NASA ADS citation data for all refereed articles published in 2020–2023 in six journals (MNRAS, ApJ, ApJL, ApJS, A&A and JCAP; 37,173 papers with astro-ph primary preprints), combined with version-1 submission timestamps from the arXiv API. We group papers both by submission weekday and by the day their announcement batch appears on arXiv, accounting for arXiv's weekday deadline and lack of weekend announcements. Given the heavy skew of citation distributions, our primary statistic is the median citations per group, with bootstrap confidence intervals. Papers submitted on weekends, all of which appear in the Monday listing, have median citations significantly lower than weekday submissions in five of the six journals, by 12–26 %; the sixth (JCAP) shows the same direction, but not significantly, consistent with its small weekend sample. Median citations are indistinguishable across the five weekdays. These results extend the recently reported weekend citation disadvantage in particle and nuclear physics to astronomy. The link is correlational, consistent with either compositional variations in weekend submissions or reduced visibility in the enlarged Monday listings.
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Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics

Closed-loop Atmospheric Dispersion Correction for High-Contrast Imaging with MagAO-X

Katie Twitchell, Sebastiaan Haffert, Jared R. Males et al. (+17 more)

Incoming starlight is refracted as it enters Earth's atmosphere from the vacuum of space. The wavelength-dependence of atmospheric refraction causes elongation of the broadband PSF of ground-based telescopes, especially in the visible spectrum. The result is degraded image quality alongside reduced coronagraph light-blocking efficiency, both of which limit high-contrast observations. An atmospheric dispersion corrector (ADC) is a dispersive optic used to compensate for this effect. Current methods for dispersion compensation use analytical models to anticipate dispersion strength based on parameters such as site altitude and telescope zenith angle; however, dispersion strength is also dictated by a number of factors that cannot be measured, including instantaneous humidity, temperature, and pressure along the line of sight to the star. This leads to constant over- or under-correction of the true atmospheric dispersion by the ADC. In this work, we use the Magellan extreme adaptive optics system MagAO-X at Las Campanas Observatory to measure and correct residual atmospheric dispersion in real-time. The amount of residual dispersion is encoded in the orientation of satellite spots generated by using MagAO-X's deformable mirror as a diffraction grating. We have used these real-time measurements as feedback for closed-loop control of the ADCs on-sky at visible and NIR wavelengths, reducing residual atmospheric dispersion down to sub-mas/$\mu$m levels. Active atmospheric dispersion correction on MagAO-X is a precursor to high-contrast imaging with Extreme AO for the upcoming Extremely Large Telescopes, where high-precision dispersion compensation will be required to image exoplanets in reflected light.
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All authors Katie Twitchell, Sebastiaan Haffert, Jared R. Males, Laird M. Close, Olivier Guyon, Kyle Van Gorkom, Alexander Hedglen, Parker T. Johnson, Maggie Y. Kautz, Jay K. Kueny, Joshua Liberman, Miles Lucas, Avalon McLeod, Matthijs Mars, Eden A. McEwen, Jialin Li, Joseph D. Long, Jhen Lumbres, Lauren Schatz, Elena Tonucci

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics

windsoCC: reconstructing the wind-driven halo in MagAO-X images using wavefront sensor telemetry

Jay K. Kueny, Jared R. Males, Alycia J. Weinberger et al. (+16 more)

The wind-driven halo (WDH) is a persistent, low spatial frequency noise artifact that arises due to the servo-lag error inherent to all adaptive optics (AO) instruments. Spatial filtering may be employed to overcome this artifact, however, filtering out the WDH while simultaneously preserving signal from an extended astrophysical object of interest is exceptionally challenging. Additionally, since the WDH changes in intensity and position angle through an observation, data-driven algorithms (e.g., KLIP) that are commonly used to subtract the starlight need to be overly-aggressive to remove both the static and dynamic noise components. Since wavefront sensors (WFSs) continuously track the closed-loop residual wavefront error, WFS telemetry presents the ideal resource for combating this type of noise artifact through postprocessing. Using archival WFS telemetry from MagAO-X, which is the “extreme" AO instrument for the 6.5-meter Magellan-Clay telescope, we demonstrate a novel workflow for WDH reconstruction and removal in individual coronagraphic science images. MagAO-X is equipped with a pyramid WFS capable of recording wavefront telemetry at a high-cadence which is saved during data acquisition. Given this, we detail how our WFS data processing pipeline, windsoCC, cross-correlates the recorded closed-loop wavefront to measure the wind vectors of several turbulent layers of the atmosphere above Las Campanas Observatory. We then make use of the wind parameters learned through windsoCC to reconstruct the WDH footprint by leveraging a parametric model. Notably, we demonstrate a dramatic improvement in object recovery using on-sky MagAO-X images of the disk around HR~4796A at visible wavelengths.
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All authors Jay K. Kueny, Jared R. Males, Alycia J. Weinberger, Laird M. Close, Joseph D. Long, Joshua Liberman, Sebastiaan Haffert, Eden McEwen, Maggie Y. Kautz, Olivier Guyon, Logan Pearce, Parker T. Johnson, Katie Twitchell, Jialin Li, Alex Hedglen, Avalon Gower, Warren Foster, Jhen Lumbres, Lauren Schatz

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics

Lunar Reflective Interferometry

Peter W. Gorham, T. Joseph W. Lazio, Andrew Romero-Wolf et al. (+14 more)

We present the method of lunar reflection interferometry (LRI) in which a virtual interferometer can be formed by using a spacecraft-borne antenna in lunar orbit that receives both direct rays and those reflected from the lunar surface. The technique exploits the method of images and is akin to the classic "sea cliff" interferometer, with the Moon's surface, primarily the lunar Maria, replacing the ocean surface. We describe the method in detail, demonstrate that significant portions of the Moon's surface are sufficiently smooth at low radio frequencies, $\nu \lesssim 10\,\mathrm{MHz}$, for the technique to work, and outline a spacecraft instrument implementation. We describe potential systematic errors and how they could be mitigated. We present several astrophysics applications of the method.
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All authors Peter W. Gorham, T. Joseph W. Lazio, Andrew Romero-Wolf, Patrick S. Allison, Marin M. Anderson, Ali M. Bramson, Roman Burridge, Amy Connolly, Emily S. Costello, Cosmin Deaconu, Susan Lepri, Christian Miki, Eric Oberla, Sean Peters, Kathryn Plant, Julie Rolla, Matthew Siegler

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics

Tabular foundation models for the estimation of probabilistic quasar photometric redshifts in S-PLUS

Raquel R. Valença, Lilianne Nakazono, Rafael Izbicki et al. (+6 more)

We assess whether tabular foundation models can be used as off-the-shelf probabilistic photometric-redshift estimators for quasars in the 12-band S-PLUS DR6 survey, where colour-redshift degeneracies produce multi-modal posteriors and spectroscopic training sets are shifted relative to the photometric population. TabPFN 2.5, RealTabPFN 2.5, and TabICL are benchmarked against eight task-specific baselines, including linear conditional Gaussians, FlexZBoost, mixture-density networks, normalising flows, random forests, and gradient-boosted trees, with training sets from 500 to 121,626 quasars, using both density and point-prediction metrics, together with importance-weighted scores that approximate deployment on the photometric target sample. TabPFN 2.5 is best or statistically tied for best on all metrics except the unweighted CDE loss, on which the normalising flow is statistically tied and attains the lowest mean value; its largest gains occur for small training sets and in difficult regimes (very bright and faint sources, high redshift), while retaining near-nominal calibration under covariate shift. Its main practical cost is inference: with frozen weights, large support and target catalogues require substantial GPU/accelerator memory, and full-catalogue deployment may need support-set subsampling or distillation. SHAP attributions identify WISE W1/W2 as the strongest individual predictors, with UV and optical bands offering non-negligible refinements. We conclude that TabPFN 2.5 is a strong default for probabilistic quasar photo-z estimation, particularly when training data are limited or when calibration under covariate shift is critical.
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All authors Raquel R. Valença, Lilianne Nakazono, Rafael Izbicki, Marco Henrique de Almeida Inácio, Bruno Marcondes e Resende, Maycon Jorge Deláqua da Silva, Kiana Coimbra Buin Lins, Natanael M. Cardoso, Claudia Mendes de Oliveira

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics

The final design of GMagAO-X: high-contrast imaging at first-light of the GMT

Jared R. Males, Laird M. Close, Sebastiaan Y. Haffert et al. (+13 more)

GMagAO-X will be the first-light high-contrast imager on the 25 m Giant Magellan Telescope. The driving science case for GMagAO-X is characterization of the atmospheres of nearby rocky exoplanets such as Proxima Centauri b. The revolutionary increase in spatial resolution and sensitivity provided by GMagAO-X will enable detailed study of such planets for the first time. Additional science cases include: reflected light characterization of mature giant planets; measurement of young extrasolar giant planet variability; characterization of circumstellar disks at unprecedented spatial resolution; characterization of benchmark stellar atmospheres at high spectral resolution; and mapping of resolved objects such as giant stars and asteroids. These, and many more, science cases will be enabled by a 21,000 actuator extreme adaptive optics (ExAO) system, an integrated coronagraphic wavefront control system with dedicated deformable mirrors, and a suite of imagers and spectrographs. Science-driven performance requirements for GMagAO-X include achieving a Strehl ratio of 70% at 800 nm on 8th mag and brighter stars, and exoplanet characterization at planet:star flux-ratios of 1e-7 at 4 lambda/D (26 mas at 800 nm) separation. GMagAO-X has been added to the GMT project baseline plan and is in the final design phase, aiming to complete FDR in March, 2027. The instrument is on track to be ready at first-light of the GMT in the mid 2030s. We provide a brief update of the instrument designed to achieve our ambitious performance targets.
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All authors Jared R. Males, Laird M. Close, Sebastiaan Y. Haffert, Victor Gasho, Adam Fletcher, Joseph Boales, Dhruv Lakhani, Maggie Y. Kautz, Doug Kelly, Olivier Durney, Thomas Salanski, Peter Gray, Cody Nelson, Steven Cornelissen, Paul Bierden, Olivier Guyon

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics

Sensor fusion on MagAO-X: real time vibration control using accelerometers

Parker T. Johnson, Jared R. Males, Povilas Palunas et al. (+16 more)

Mechanical vibrations are a significant source of residual wavefront error (WFE) in adaptive optics (AO) systems, limiting the performance of high-contrast imaging instruments. We present the design and on-sky deployment of a low-cost, modular accelerometer telemetry system for the MagAO-X extreme AO instrument on the 6.5 m Magellan Clay Telescope, consisting of piezoelectric accelerometers and a Raspberry Pi-based acquisition system that streams synchronized data to the real-time control computer with microsecond-level timing stability. The system is used to identify dominant telescope vibration sources and quantify their coupling to AO telemetry, revealing that several narrow-band modes originate from subsystems including the primary mirror glycol pump, secondary mirror actuation system, and telescope autofocus system. Coherence analysis between the synchronized accelerometer and wavefront sensor telemetry demonstrates that approximately one-third of the residual tip and tilt WFE is correlated with structural vibrations, indicating that accelerometer telemetry provides a promising foundation for future predictive control implementations. These results demonstrate that low-cost accelerometer telemetry provides a practical approach for vibration identification and a foundation for predictive control in current and future AO systems.
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All authors Parker T. Johnson, Jared R. Males, Povilas Palunas, Olivier Guyon, Sebastiaan Haffert, Joseph Long, Vincent Deo, Julien Lozi, Laird M. Close, Maggie Kautz, Jay Kueny, Jialin Li, Joshua Liberman, Miles Lucas, Matthijs Mars, Eden McEwen, Tiffany Nguyen, Elena Tonucci, Katie Twitchell

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics

Wavelength Calibration Accuracy Across the STIS CCD: Pipeline Update and User Guidance

Matilde Mingozzi, Robert Jedrzejewski, Matthew Siebert et al. (+3 more)

We investigate the wavelength calibration accuracy of STIS CCD spectra as a function of detector position, focusing on the E1/E2 pseudo-apertures. Comparison between measured lamp line centroids and laboratory wavelengths shows that, while the standard calstis solution is stable at the detector center, significant offsets are present toward the CCD edges and increase with time. We used a test version of calstis in which the wavelength calibration step employs a row-selected cross-correlation, leading to improved wavelength calibration accuracy for edge extractions. Motivated by these results, we implemented an update to calstis4 that applies a row-selected wavecal procedure to observations taken with the E1/E2 pseudo-apertures, while preserving the standard procedure for nominal extractions. The updated pipeline was then used to reprocess the entire STIS archive in MAST. Validation tests confirm improved agreement between nominal and E1/E2 spectra without significant side effects for more than 97% of the datasets in the MAST archive. The main exceptions are the majority of G230MB and a few G230LB and G430M datasets, where the lower signal-to-noise at the CCD edge makes the lamp lines harder to detect and cosmic-ray residuals can dominate the cross-correlation, leading to incorrect wavelength shifts. A Jupyter Notebook is also provided to enable similar corrections in case the cross-correlation fails, for extractions at positions other than E1/E2, or for multiple extractions along the slit. Finally, we discuss the potential impact of the wavelength calibration accuracy on science results.
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All authors Matilde Mingozzi, Robert Jedrzejewski, Matthew Siebert, Daniel Welty, Sean Lockwood, Joleen Carlberg

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics

CCD Rotation Rates From Regular Dispersion Solution Monitoring

Matilde Mingozzi and Matthew Siebert

It has been previously studied that the STIS CCD exhibits a slow rotation, evident from changes in spectral traces and flat-field evolution. In this Instrument Science Report, we present an independent spectroscopic analysis of the CCD rotation angle and a comparison with previous studies. We describe the methodology used to derive rotation angles and rates across different gratings and central wavelengths, and report the corresponding median rotation rates over time. The results are broadly consistent within uncertainties with earlier measurements, indicating the CCD rotation has the same impact on all the CCD gratings. We also discuss key assumptions limiting our analysis. These findings contribute to the ongoing monitoring of STIS CCD rotation and its implications for calibration accuracy.
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Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics

The eXtreme Wavefront Control Toolkit: High-Contrast Imaging Instrument Control for Ground and Space-Based Coronagraphs

Jared R. Males, Joseph D. Long, Sebastiaan Y. Haffert et al. (+16 more)

We present the eXtreme Wavefront Control Toolkit (XWCTk) instrument control software system developed for the MagAO-X extreme adaptive optics (ExAO) instrument. The XWCTk is built on a foundation of the ImageStreamIO (ISIO) / MILK / CACAO low-latency image processing and high dimensional control tool chain. Instrument control is managed with the Instrument Neutral Distributed Interface (INDI). The application framework provides configuration, logging, and distributed IPC with INDI and low-latency IPC with ISIO. On MagAO-X, every detector is a potential wavefront sensor capable of sending commands to three separate DMs. MagAO-X utilizes a distributed control system, where multiple computers each manage low-latency wavefront control tasks but are capable of coordinated control. Implemented algorithms include neural networks for nonlinear reconstruction at over 3 kHz. We have incorporated distributed raspberry pis for accelerometer data acquisition with low-latency streaming to the real-time computers for sensor fusion control. A core design principle of the XWCTk is that all data can be saved all the time. This includes full-rate WFS images, DM commands, as well as science data. To facilitate this we have implemented a custom lossless compression system capable of sustaining high data rates to disk. A python interface for scripting and experimentation, as well as a python application framework is provided which can be used for non-real-time tasks. Remote operations (e.g. from Tucson Arizona when the instrument is at LCO in Chile) are routine. The XWCTk is under continuous development for the MagAO-X instrument, and will be adapted for GMagAO-X, the planned first-light ExAO coronagraph for the Giant Magellan Telescope. XWCTk is the baseline for a space high contrast imaging instrument, and as such ongoing development is focused on automation for robust operation in flight.
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All authors Jared R. Males, Joseph D. Long, Sebastiaan Y. Haffert, Kyle Van Gorkom, Parker Johnson, Rico Landman, Eden McEwen, Olivier Guyon, Vincent Deo, Miles Lucas, Irina Stefan, Katie Twitchell, Jay Kueny, Joshua Liberman, Adam K. Taras, Adam Schilperoort, Matthijs Mars, Ewan S. Douglas, Laird M. Close

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics

Freezing the speckles: focal plane wavefront sensing with the spatially-clipped self-coherent camera

Joshua Liberman, Sebastiaan Y. Haffert, Jared R. Males et al. (+8 more)

The next generation of Extremely Large Telescopes (ELTs) and the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) require active speckle suppression to directly image exo-Earths. Focal plane wavefront sensing and control allows us to detect and remove time-varying speckles through measurements of the electric field. Wavefront sensing approaches include pairwise probing (PWP) and the self-coherent camera (SCC). However, the PWP technique is time-consuming, requiring at least 4 images and reducing the speed at which aberrations can be eliminated. The classical SCC modifies a standard coronagraph design, creating a reference electric field that interferes with speckles in the final focal plane, forming Fizeau fringes. However, this design only works over small spectral bandwidths and requires significantly oversized optics, limiting its effectiveness. We demonstrate a new SCC variant, the Spatially-Clipped SCC (SCSCC). The SCSCC utilizes a pinhole placed close to the Lyot stop, reducing the overall beam footprint and boosting the sensor's spectral bandwidth by factors of 3, respectively. A beamsplitter and knife edge downstream of the Lyot stop splits the light into 2 channels: fringed and unfringed, enabling wavefront sensing with a single exposure. Time-varying speckles are frozen in place, making them easy to remove. We present the SCSCC optical design combined with the photon resolving Hamamatsu Orca-Quest 2 camera. Furthermore, we demonstrate high speed wavefront control with the SCSCC, minimizing speckle intensity by 2x within a 5-11 lambda/D dark hole region on the Comprehensive Adaptive Optics and Coronagraph Test Instrument (CACTI) at the University of Arizona. These lab tests are in preparation for an on-sky demonstration of the SCSCC with the MagAO-X instrument. Our results make the SCSCC a valuable wavefront sensor for upcoming missions, including the Giant Magellan Telescope and HWO.
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All authors Joshua Liberman, Sebastiaan Y. Haffert, Jared R. Males, Aditya Khandelwal, Stephanie Rinaldi, Joseph D. Long, Katie M. Twitchell, Jay K. Kueny, Ewan S. Douglas, Lauren Schatz, Jhen Lumbres

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics

The Carruthers Mission Concept and Performance

W. Craig, T. Immel, L. Waldrop et al. (+12 more)

The Carruthers Geocoronal Observatory (Carruthers), formerly GLIDE, is a NASA Heliophysics Science Mission of Opportunity implemented through the Solar Terrestrial Probes (STP) Program and launched as a rideshare in September 2025. Carruthers is the first spaceflight mission edicated to continuous global imaging of Earth's hydrogen exosphere through observations of geocoronal Lyman-$\alpha$ emission at 121.6 nm. The observatory operates at distances of 1.3-1.7 million km in a halo orbit about the Sun-Earth L1 point, enabling retrieval of the three-dimensional distribution of atomic hydrogen, the dominant constituent of the exosphere, on hourly timescales and unprecedented spatial resolution. These new data provide the key to understanding processes governing atmospheric escape, geospace coupling, and solar-wind interaction. Carruthers carries the GeoCoronal Imager (GCI), a dual-channel ultraviolet imaging instrument comprising the Narrow-Field Imager (NFI) for high-resolution observations of the inner exosphere and the Wide-Field Imager (WFI) for synoptic imaging of the extended hydrogen halo. Along with a student-provided experiment, the instrument suite is the sole payload aboard a three-axis-stabilized spacecraft designed to support nadir viewing throughout the $\sim178$ day halo orbit about L1. Observations also measure the interplanetary Lyman-$\alpha$ background, enabling separation of heliospheric and geocoronal emissions. The student-led experiment monitors solar Lyman-$\alpha$ and extreme ultraviolet emission during portions of the orbit. Science data are returned through the Deep Space Network at data rates up to 1 Mbit s$^{-1}$. The two-year baseline mission begins in March 2026, with propellant reserves capable of supporting more than ten years of orbit maintenance and maneuvers.
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All authors W. Craig, T. Immel, L. Waldrop, J. Troeltzsch, E. Taylor, J. McPhate, K. Rider, A. Butterworth, D. Cosgrove, J. Thorsness, H. Filippini, K. Lee, S. Shomo, C. McGinn, C. Peterson

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Cross-listed from astro-ph.CO

Reconstructing Dark Matter Mass and Discriminating Standard and Non-Standard WIMP-Nucleus Interactions with Paleo-Detectors

Dionysios P. Theodosopoulos, Katherine Freese, Chris Kelso et al. (+1 more)

Paleo-detectors record and retain crystal damage in ancient minerals from nuclear recoils induced by dark matter scattering over geological timescales. Previous studies have shown that paleo-detectors can provide sensitivity to a variety of dark matter (DM) scenarios which is complementary to conventional direct-detection experiments. In this paper, we complete the first detailed study of how well paleo-detectors can reconstruct DM parameters or distinguish between different types of DM interactions with nuclei in the presence of a DM signal, considering both elastic and inelastic DM-nucleus scattering. For representative nuclear recoil track read-out scenarios, we demonstrate that weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) DM masses can be reconstructed for a variety of Non-Relativistic Effective Field Theory (NREFT) interactions between WIMPs and nuclei. In particular, paleo-detectors are projected to be capable of reconstructing WIMP masses $\lesssim$ 10 GeV, a regime that is challenging for conventional direct-detection experiments; further, we find that paleo-detectors could reconstruct WIMP masses up to 1 TeV for hypothetical signals within their accessible parameter space, extending the mass range over which reconstruction is possible by up to a factor of $\sim 2$ compared with analogous studies of conventional direct-detection experiments. In addition, we demonstrate that paleo-detectors could discriminate between canonical spin-independent or spin-dependent NREFT interactions and non-canonical interactions which can depend on the relative velocity or momentum transferred between the WIMP and nucleus. Specifically, at WIMP masses $\gtrsim$ 10 GeV, we project that canonical NREFT interactions can be excluded by paleo-detectors in the cases of nearly all non-canonical interactions without measurement of nuclear recoil direction, which conventional experiments typically require.
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All authors Dionysios P. Theodosopoulos, Katherine Freese, Chris Kelso, Patrick Stengel

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Cross-listed from astro-ph.EP

Technology and Science Advancing Observations with Roman Coronagraph Informed by Ground-Based High-Contrast Imaging

Mona El Morsy, Thayne Currie, Brianna Lacy et al. (+10 more)

The Roman Coronagraph technology demonstration focuses on achieving $<$ 10$^{-7}$ contrasts within the instrument's dark hole and our ability to detect and characterize properties of faint companions around bright stars. Here, we describe results from a study of potential Roman Coronagraph technology demonstration phase observations focused on these goals, informed by the ongoing OASIS survey at the Subaru Telescope and precursor survey work. OASIS provides at least three compelling targets for the technology demonstration phase with imaged companions - the HIP 71618 B brown dwarf and superjovian planets HIP 54515 b and HIP 99770 b. HIP 71618 is well suited for demonstrating the Coronagraph's core performance requirement while all three targets are well suited for spectroscopic mode observations. Each target can be paired with a PSF reference star vetted for companions. While HIP 71618 and HIP 54515 are already planned for Technology Demonstration phase observations, we describe the programmatic and scientific value of adding spectroscopic mode observations of HIP 99770 as well.
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All authors Mona El Morsy, Thayne Currie, Brianna Lacy, Danielle Bovie, Erica Dykes, Jie Li, Olivier Guyon, Julien Lozi, Garima Singh, Kyohoon Ahn, Vincent Deo, Sebastien Vievard, Yoshito Ono

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Cross-listed from quant-ph

Eliminating photon transport in long-baseline optical interferometry using quantum memories

Yousef K. Chahine, Chaohan Cui, William DeRocco et al. (+11 more)

In this paper, we describe the fundamental operating mechanisms of optical interferometry using quantum memory and entanglement. We show how these remove the optical delay line bottleneck. Quantum memory is not without its own set of challenges, some of which include very small bandwidths as well as limitations in storage time. We examine the influence of timing artifacts on memory photon capture probability and interferometric complex visibility. We highlight keystone areas of technology that require further development and are essential to realizing these opportunities, as well as ongoing work to overcome these challenges.
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All authors Yousef K. Chahine, Chaohan Cui, William DeRocco, Daniel Gottesman, Saikat Guha, Emil T. Khabiboulline, Zhenning Liu, Brittany McClinton, Jayadev Rajagopal, Fredrik Rantakyro, J. Gabriel Richardson, Stephen Ridgway, Aqil Sajjad, Joohyung Song

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics

A bestiary of low-level electrical artifacts in SPHEREx flight data

Candice M. Fazar, Michael Zemcov, C. Darren Dowell et al. (+3 more)

SPHEREx, NASA's all-sky spectrophotometric survey mission, maps the sky in 102 spectral channels from 0.75 um to 5.0 um at 6.15” resolution from low-Earth orbit using a custom readout of six HAWAII-2RG detectors. The SPHEREx instrument team and Science Data Center have built a robust science data pipeline that includes mitigating image-space artifacts arising from low-level optical and electronic effects. Analysis of first-survey flight data has confirmed predictions for some of these effects, determined differences between the laboratory and flight predictions in others, and even found new artifacts that were unanticipated. This paper will summarize our current understanding of artifacts in SPHEREx images, including image-space artifacts resulting from cosmic rays, crosstalk and unresponsive pixels. We also present mitigation and/or masking strategies implemented to mitigate such effects, and an assessment of the possible implications for other space missions using HAWAII-2RG detectors.
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All authors Candice M. Fazar, Michael Zemcov, C. Darren Dowell, Brendan P. Crill, Chi Nguyen, Howard Hui

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics

NASA ASTRA Initiative White Paper: Space-Based Mission for Ultrahigh Energy Particles

Mauricio Bustamante, Johannes Eser, Ke Fang et al. (+9 more)

Ultra-high-energy cosmic rays ($E_{\rm CR} \gtrsim 1$ EeV) are the highest-energy particles known, signaling extreme particle processes at work in the universe. However, many aspects of their nature remain largely unknown, even after more than a century of study. Very-high-energy ($E_\nu \gtrsim 1$ PeV neutrinos associated with cosmic-ray interactions, both during the acceleration process and propagation, would provide new insight into these extreme particles, as we have seen at lower energies with the dawn of TeV neutrino astronomy. Nevertheless, only a handful of such neutrinos have been observed thus far. A space-based observatory dedicated to studying cosmic rays, neutrinos, and photons would provide an unprecedented platform for observations of these extreme-energy messengers.
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All authors Mauricio Bustamante, Johannes Eser, Ke Fang, Claire Guépin, John Krizmanic, Eric Mayotte, Keith McBride, Kohta Murase, Mary Hall Reno, Frank Schroeder, Tonia M. Venters, Stephanie Wissel

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics

SGNAX: a unified matched-filter and excess-power pipeline for gravitational-wave detector characterization

Zach Yarbrough, Olivia Godwin, Derek Davis et al. (+1 more)

We present SGNAX, an open-source pipeline for gravitational-wave detector characterization that delivers matched-filter and excess-power transient triggers from a single streaming dataflow graph. Built on the Stream Graph Navigator (sgn) framework, SGNAX unifies the multi-rate sine-Gaussian matched-filter search of snax and the multi-resolution Q-transform search of omicron in one Python-native package. Auxiliary channels from an interferometer are analyzed as parallel branches sharing data-read and whitening stages, reducing per-channel processing cost as channels are added. A full day of 16 kHz strain is analyzed in 14 minutes, and Q-transform processing is 2.8 times more efficient per channel at 32 channels than at one. Matched-filter correlations use PyTorch and run on CPU or GPU. Data sources include offline frame caches, shared-memory buffers, and the arrakis distribution service, with the same configuration supporting offline and online operation. The matched filter delivers triggers at about five seconds end-to-end latency, while the Q-transform operates at latencies of tens of seconds. Injection campaigns recover 99.4% of recoverable sine-Gaussian injections with parameters within the expected template mismatch and show broadband white-noise-burst recovery consistent with established event-trigger generators. On 24 hours of archival LIGO strain, SGNAX reproduces the omicron trigger population at 10–100 Hz, with trigger rates and SNRs agreeing to a few percent. On production auxiliary channels, it recovers the snax loud-feature population with 80% per-bin coincidence. The injection-calibrated reimplementation also reveals a multiband amplitude error in production snax that inflates reported SNRs below 25.6 Hz by factors of $\sqrt{2}$–2, for which we identify the mechanism and correction.
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All authors Zach Yarbrough, Olivia Godwin, Derek Davis, Gabriela González

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics

Quasi-automatic software support for Gaia ground based optical tracking

S. Bouquillon, C. Barache, T. Carlucci et al. (+6 more)

The ESA Gaia satellite mission will create a catalog of 1 billion stars with unprecedented astrometric precision. To achieve its aim in terms of astrometric precision, a ground based optical tracking campaign (GBOT) of the satellite itself is necessary during the five years of the mission. We present an overview of the GBOT project as a whole in another contribution (Altmann et al. in SPIE category "observatory operations"). The present paper will focus more specifically on the software solutions developed by the GBOT group.
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All authors S. Bouquillon, C. Barache, T. Carlucci, F. Taris, M. Altmann, A. H. Andrei, R. Smart, I. A. Steele, S. G. Els

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics

Pulsar Timing Array Sensitivity to Anisotropy: Empirical Sensitivity Curves, Scaling Relations, and the Multi-Resolution Pixel Basis

Taha T. Moursy, Nihan S. Pol, Gabriella Agazie et al. (+115 more)

We quantify pulsar timing array (PTA) sensitivity to anisotropy in the gravitational wave background using the cross-correlation based Fisher information matrix in the pixel and spherical harmonic bases. We use a set of simulations to empirically determine scaling relations of a PTA's sensitivity to anisotropy with the number of pulsars $N_\mathrm{psr}$ in the array, the error $\delta t$ on the times of arrival, the frequency $f_\mathrm{GW}$ of the gravitational waves, and the angular scale $\Delta\Omega$ of the anisotropy. The sensitivity scales approximately as $N_\mathrm{psr}^{0.8}$, $\delta t^{-0.08}$, and $\Delta\Omega^{1.6}-\Delta\Omega^{2.1}$ (depending on the ranges of $\ell$ and $m$ under consideration). In addition, we use realistic simulations to project the NANOGrav PTA sensitivity to a 30-year baseline and quantify the growth in sensitivity at several timeslices. Except at the lowest frequencies, we find negligible effect on sensitivity through increasing the observation duration only. Finally, we introduce a multi-resolution pixel basis motivated by the large dependence of the sensitivity on sky location, and demonstrate the operation of the basis through a set of injections and recoveries.
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All authors Taha T. Moursy, Nihan S. Pol, Gabriella Agazie, Nikita Agarwal, Akash Anumarlapudi, Anne M. Archibald, Zaven Arzoumanian, Anjana Ashok, Jeremy G. Baier, Paul T. Baker, Bence Bécsy, Laura Blecha, Adam Brazier, Paul R. Brook, Sarah Burke-Spolaor, Rand Burnette, Robin Case, J. Andrew Casey-Clyde, Maria Charisi, Shami Chatterjee, Tyler Cohen, James M. Cordes, Neil J. Cornish, Fronefield Crawford, H. Thankful Cromartie, Kathryn Crowter, Megan E. DeCesar, Paul B. Demorest, Heling Deng, Lankeswar Dey, Timothy Dolch, Graham M. Doskoch, Elizabeth C. Ferrara, William Fiore, Emmanuel Fonseca, Gabriel E. Freedman, Emiko C. Gardiner, Nate Garver-Daniels, Peter A. Gentile, Kyle A. Gersbach, Joseph Glaser, Deborah C. Good, Kayhan Gültekin, Aiden Gundersen, C. J. Harris, Jeffrey S. Hazboun, Ross J. Jennings, Aaron D. Johnson, Megan L. Jones, David L. Kaplan, Anala K. Sreekumar, Luke Zoltan Kelley, Matthew Kerr, Joey S. Key, Nima Laal, Michael T. Lam, William G. Lamb, Bjorn Larsen, T. Joseph W. Lazio, Natalia Lewandowska, Tingting Liu, Duncan R. Lorimer, Jing Luo, Ryan S. Lynch, Chung-Pei Ma, Dustin R. Madison, Ashley Martsen, Cayenne Matt, Alexander McEwen, James W. McKee, Maura A. McLaughlin, Natasha McMann, Bradley W. Meyers, Patrick M. Meyers, Matthew T. Miles, Chiara M. F. Mingarelli, Andrea Mitridate, Cherry Ng, David J. Nice, Shania A. Nichols, Stella Koch Ocker, Daniel J. Oliver, Ken D. Olum, Timothy T. Pennucci, Benetge B. P. Perera, Polina Petrov, Henri A. Radovan, Scott M. Ransom, Paul S. Ray, Joseph D. Romano, Jessie C. Runnoe, Alexander Saffer, Shashwat C. Sardesai, Ann Schmiedekamp, Carl Schmiedekamp, Kai Schmitz, Levi Schult, Brent J. Shapiro-Albert, Xavier Siemens, Joseph Simon, Sophia V. Sosa Fiscella, Ingrid H. Stairs, Daniel R. Stinebring, Kevin Stovall, Abhimanyu Susobhanan, Joseph K. Swiggum, Jacob Taylor, Stephen R. Taylor, Mercedes S. Thompson, Jacob E. Turner, Michele Vallisneri, Rutger van Haasteren, Sarah J. Vigeland, Haley M. Wahl, Kevin P. Wilson, Caitlin A. Witt, David Wright, Olivia Young

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics

Wigner interferometry

Vladimir Lenok

Aims. This work aims to introduce a new method of interferometric measurements based on correlation of Wigner functions constructed for the fields from a distant source. Methods. This work presents theoretical studies of correlation of the Wigner functions. Numerical simulations support the findings. Results. It is shown that in comparison to the correlation of the fields, a correlation of their Wigner functions samples twice higher spatial frequencies of the source intensity distribution and has about twice smaller scale of the spatial pattern. This opens a fundamental possibility to improve the angular resolution of interferometric measurements by a factor of two.
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Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Cross-listed from astro-ph.SR

HXI-DLA2: A Physics-Constrained Deep Learning Algorithm for the ASO-S Hard X-ray Imager

Zou SiZhong, Liu Hui, Su Yang et al. (+5 more)

Solar flare hard X-ray imaging is a key diagnostic of flare energy release and electron acceleration. The Hard X-ray Imager (HXI) aboard ASO-S compresses the two-dimensional source distribution into counts measured by 91 sub-collimators, making image reconstruction an inherently underdetermined inverse problem. Conventional algorithms such as CLEAN rely on point-source priors and manual tuning, whereas recent deep-learning methods offer no guarantee that their reconstructions obey the instrument's modulation-sampling forward equation. In this work we show that the counts decompose into two nearly decoupled quantities—the counts average energy, which tracks the total source flux, and the normalized counts distribution, which encodes the source spatial structure—and we exploit this property to construct a physics-constrained network, the Hard X-ray Imager Deep Learning Algorithm 2 (HXI-DLA2). Non-negativity and exact counts-average-energy closure are enforced at the network output, while a distribution-consistency loss aligns the re-projected counts with the measurement, so that the reconstruction satisfies the forward equation by construction. Tests on simulated Gaussian sources, observed soft X-ray morphologies, and a real HXI flare event show two main improvements over existing methods: the limiting resolvable dynamic range of double sources is pushed well beyond that of conventional imaging algorithms and our previous method; and complex morphologies on which prior reconstructions degrade, such as ring-like and diffuse structures, are reliably reconstructed, with the real-event result consistent with contemporaneous SDO/AIA imaging. Embedding the instrumental forward equation as a hard constraint while learning source priors from data offers a general inversion framework for modulation imaging.
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All authors Zou SiZhong, Liu Hui, Su Yang, Hong JunChao, Bin Wang, Chen Wei, KaiFan Ji, ZhenYu Jin

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics

Unsupervised Domain Adaptation for Multitask Image Analysis in Realistic Context with Extreme Label Shift; Application to the CTAO first Large Sized Telescope

Michaël Dell'aiera, Thomas Vuillaume and Alexandre Benoit

Unsupervised domain adaptation is a widespread set of methods that leverages the knowledge of a labeled source domain to train a model to perform well on a related unlabeled target domain. They generally introduce an auxiliary adaptation-related task that can be integrated into the multitask paradigm, which aims to merge multiple single-task models into a unified architecture. In this paper, we propose to associate domain adaptation and multitask balancing in the realistic context of an extreme class imbalance. Therefore, we propose a combined framework to cover and validate these approaches, and evaluate its performance in the physics-based context of the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO). Along with a comparative study of some relevant adaptation techniques, we highlight the impact of extreme label shift and extend the investigations on importance weighting to rectify it. The complete code and results are published and available as open-source resources on Zenodo.
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Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics

Kratos-linerad: GPU-accelerated Monte Carlo radiative transfer of lines with efficient imaging

Lile Wang

Spectral lines encode the velocity, the temperature, and the chemical structure of astrophysical gas; interpreting them requires radiative transfer that is accurate at high optical depth, consistent with the local excitation, and efficient enough to synthesize velocity-resolved images. We present Kratos-linerad, a GPU-accelerated Monte Carlo radiative transfer code for spectral lines. The level populations can be iterated to statistical equilibrium together with the escaping photon distribution, treating angle-dependent partial frequency redistribution through constant-memory sampling tables. The code adopts the two-step imaging scheme to line transfer, in which a Monte Carlo pass samples a velocity-resolved scattering emissivity, and a deterministic ray-tracing pass synthesizes channel maps decoupled from the scattering geometry. Validation reproduces the analytic scaling of escaped spectra and the imaging double-peak profiles. GPU parallelism enables both stages sufficiently fast for routine application to astrophysically realistic models.
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Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Cross-listed from math.NA

High-order fully discrete multi-entropy-stable and bound-preserving schemes for relativistic Euler equations

Linfeng Xu and Kailiang Wu

A discrete entropy inequality is the principal nonlinear stability estimate available for systems of conservation laws, and evaluating it presupposes a physically admissible state. So far, however, the two have been secured separately. Entropy-stable schemes are almost always semi-discrete, are built around one selected entropy pair, and take for granted the positivity of density and pressure that makes the entropy well defined in the first place, whereas bound-preserving limiters keep the solution admissible but deliver no entropy estimate. For the special relativistic Euler equations, the two cannot be separated at all, since the conservative-to-primitive map is implicit, and an inadmissible state therefore has no entropy to correct. Here we construct high-order discontinuous Galerkin and finite volume schemes that, to our knowledge, for the first time, are entropy stable in the fully discrete sense for an arbitrary prescribed finite family of convex entropy pairs, a property we call multi-entropy stability, and are provably admissible wherever an entropy is evaluated. All of this is achieved by a single cellwise projection, and neither conservation nor the design order is lost. The construction rests on relativistic causality, which bounds every characteristic speed by the speed of light. Consequently, the numerical viscosity can be fixed once for all states and all equations of state, and one two-point building block then serves the whole entropy family. Since only the convexity of the admissible set and this speed bound are used, the same route remains open for related systems. Finally, in computations with four equations of state, the schemes retain high-order accuracy close to vacuum, produce no inadmissible state in strong shocks, near-vacuum shock–vortex interaction or jets with Lorentz factor above $70$, and confirm the monotone decay of every enforced discrete entropy.
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Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics

Pointing Model Meets Deep Learning: A Retrospective Study on a MeerKAT+ Telescope Applying Deep Learning Methods for Blind Pointing Corrections

Stefan Thoms and Matthias Reichert

This study aims to compare the effectiveness of deep learning methods, specifically Feedforward Neural Networks (FNNs), with traditional Pointing Models (PMs) for compensating Blind Pointing Errors in astronomical instruments. Ambitious projects like the ongoing study for the Atacama Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (AtLAST) inspired the investigation of possible improvements to traditional Pointing Error (PE) modeling. The study assesses the practicality of FNNs by applying them to data from an instrument in operation: a precursor MeerKAT+ telescope from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR), intended to extend the current MeerKAT Radio Telescope Array at the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) site in the Meerkat National Park in South Africa.
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Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Cross-listed from astro-ph.EP

Decoding Exoplanetary Degeneracies Through Geometry: Application to Asynchronously Rotating Systems

Mradumay Sadh

This study augments the geometry-based InstellCa code that calculates accurate irradiance values to InstellCa–2, which computes the longitude averaged instellation over a given latitude on the planet along with its effective temperature profile. The estimation of instellation is performed considering the planet as a 3D body that asynchronously rotates, causing a varying zenith angle of the star resulting in a diurnal cycle. This serves as a specialised case study to demonstrate how the combination of this relative rotation and extreme proximity to host-stars can affect the estimated effective temperatures of close-in planets. 55 Cancri e is selected specifically to demonstrate the importance of this effect as it has been earlier hypothesised to exhibit asynchronous rotation and also has a debated scientific discourse about the existence of an atmosphere on the planet. The TRAPPIST-1 system, being a multi-planetary system susceptible to mean motion resonances, also serves as an interesting exemplar case to demonstrate these effects. Incorporating the stellar zenith angle to the geometrical analysis allows the possibility of physically feasible Bond albedo values that would otherwise be prohibited if a synchronously rotating bare rock scenario is assumed. Consequently, the degeneracies in the modelling of different atmospheric states of such planets can be reduced if the correct geometry is taken into account.
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Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics

Optimizing Wavefront-Deformation Sensor Placement for Active Radio-Telescope Surfaces

Stefan Thoms, Martin Timpe and Matthias Reichert

Next-generation high-frequency radio telescopes require primary-surface accuracies that passive structures alone cannot reliably achieve. The Atacama Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (AtLAST), a 50 m single-dish concept operating up to $\approx$ 1 THz, imposes a $\approx$ 20 $\mu$m rms surface-accuracy requirement across its full aperture. This is practically unattainable for a purely passive reflector subject to gravitational, thermal, and wind-induced deformation. Closed-loop active collimation and surface control are therefore imperative, which in turn requires the deformation field to be known across the full aperture in real time. Measuring it directly at the necessary resolution across the complete surface is, however, hardly feasible; instead, the current AtLAST concept development foresees reconstructing the surface from a limited set of discrete sensor positions. An algorithmic framework is presented that optimizes the number and placement of these sensors to maximize the reconstructability of the deformation field. Finite-element analysis (FEA) load cases (gravity, thermal, wind) define the deformation space, from which a data-driven Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD) basis is derived; sensor positions are then chosen by a greedy optimization algorithm and then assessed via leave-one-out cross-validation. Applied to FEA deformations of AtLAST's Back-Up Structure (BUS), and assuming a sensor noise of 5 $\mu$m rms, the method reconstructs all load cases with 50 sensors to below 2.7 $\mu$m rms (worst case) residual (BUS-) surface error.
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