Many adaptive optics systems operate by measuring the distortion of the wavefront in one wavelength range and performing the scientific observations in a second, different wavelength range. One common technique is to measure wavefront distortions at wavelengths <∼1 μm while operating the science instrument at wavelengths>∼ 1 μm. The index of refraction of air decreases sharply from shorter visi...

Context. We study the impact of the atmospheric differential chromatic refraction on the measurements and precision of relative astrometry. Specifically, we address the problem of measuring the separations of close pairs of binary stars with adaptive optics in the J and K bands. Aims. We investigate the influence of weather conditions, zenithal distance, star’s spectral type and observing wavel...

Utilizing a new average atom code, we calculate the index of refraction in C, Al, Ti, and Pd plasmas and show many conditions over which the bound-electron contribution dominates the free electrons as we explore photon energies from the optical to 100 eV (12 nm) soft x rays. For decades measurement of the electron density in plasmas by interferometers has relied on the approximation that the in...

We report a sensitive single-beam technique for measuring both the nonlinear refractive index and nonlinear absorption coefficient for a wide variety of materials. We describe the experimental details and present a comprehensive theoretical analysis including cases where nonlinear refraction is accompanied by nonlinear absorption. In these experiments, the transmittance of a sample is measured ...

In regard to the problem of aircraft noise mitigation, the present study focuses on the refraction effects to be possibly induced by anechoic facility jet flows on the measured acoustic signatures, during typical airframe noise experiments. To this end, Computational AeroAcoustics (CAA) calculations based on the solving of the Perturbed Euler Equations (PEE) are conducted, enabling the estimati...