Practical applications of liquid mirrors, astronomical surveys, astronomical applications of the Alford and Gold effect

我在未来五年的研究将涵盖天文学和天文学外的三个主要主题： 1)一个国际财团发起了国际液镜望远镜项目，该项目由一个直径4米的液镜望远镜天文台组成。该项目已获得全额资金，包括加拿大的一笔捐款，将于2011年初现曙光。ILMT数据的新颖性来自于这样一个事实，即这是第一次通过一套标准的彩色滤光片，一夜又一夜地用大型望远镜观察同一片天空。得到的数据集将是独一无二的，因为它的模糊性、广泛性，最重要的是，它提供了可变性信息。我对超新星调查、透镜研究以及ILMT最重要的贡献--机缘巧合--感兴趣。2)铁流变形镜的应用。FDM是Laval首创的一种全新的自适应光学元件。通过涂覆铁磁性液体，我们创造了可以用磁场塑造的反射表面，使我们能够制造出可以随时间变化的复杂表面。我们已经证明，这项技术可以实现一个雄心勃勃的目标：允许任意形状和大幅度的入射波前在反射后转换为任何所需形状的出射波前。FDM比传统的自适应光学要便宜得多，用途也更多。我们将在两个方面工作：a)改善反射镜的特性。B)演示实际应用。3)我将应用基于Alford&Gold最初用于测量光速的实验的天文学技术。我已经写了几篇论文，提出了新的天文学应用：a)观察引力透镜。我现在打算进行天文观测。B)发现和观测极快的时间变化(短至1纳秒)，为天文学开辟了一个新的时间窗口。C)我还发现，超快脉冲器产生的光谱特征将允许探测到发射时间间隔小于1/10/10亿秒的脉冲的天文物体。我会在现有的天文光谱数据库中搜索光谱特征。

My research over the next five years will cover three main topics in astronomy and outside astronomy: 1)An international consortium has initiated the International Liquid Mirror Telescope project, which consists of a 4-m diameter liquid mirror telescope observatory. The project has been fully funded, including a Canadian contribution, and will see first light in 2011. The novelty of the ILMT data comes from the fact that this is the first time that a large telescope will observe the same strip of sky, through a standard set of colored filters, night after night after night. The resulting data set will be unique because of its faintness, wide area, and, foremost, the variability information provided. I am interested in supernova surveys, lensing studies and, arguably the most important contribution of the ILMT: serendipity. 2) Applications of Ferrofluidic Deformable mirrors (FDMs). FDMs are an entirely new class of adaptive optical elements, pioneered at Laval. By coating ferromagnetic liquids we create reflective surfaces that can be shaped with magnetic fields, allowing us to make complex surfaces that can vary in time. We have shown that the technology can deliver on an ambitious goal: To allow an incoming wavefront of arbitrary shape and large amplitude to be transformed upon reflection to an outgoing wavefront of any desired shape. FDMs are far cheaper and more versatile than conventional adaptive optics. We will work on two fronts: a) Improve the characteristics of the mirrors. b)Demonstrate practical applications. 3) I will apply to Astronomy techniques based on an experiment by Alford & Gold originally used to measure the speed of light. I have written several papers that propose novel astronomical applications: a) To observe gravitational lenses. I intend now to carry out astronomical observations. b) Find and observe extremely fast time variations (as short as 1 nanosecond), opening up a new time window in astronomy. c) I also found that ultra-rapid pulsators generate spectral signatures that would allow the detection of astronomical objects sending pulses with time separations shorter than 1/10 of 1/ billion seconds. I will search for the spectral signatures in existing databases of astronomical spectra.