(Very) Fast astronomical photometry for meter-class telescopes

Our team at the INAF-Astronomical Observatory of Padova and the University of Padova is engaged in the design, construction and operations of instruments with very high time accuracy in the optical band for applications to High Time Resolution Astrophysics and Quantum Astronomy. Two instruments were built to perform photon counting with sub-nanosecond temporal accuracy, Aqueye+ and Iqueye. Aqueye+ is regularly mounted at the 1.8m Copernicus telescope in Asiago, while Iqueye was mounted at several 4m class telescopes around the world and is now attached through the Iqueye Fiber Interface at the 1.2m Galileo telescope in Asiago. They are used to perform coordinated high time resolution optical observations and, for the first time ever, experiments of optical intensity interferometry on a baseline of a few kilometers. I will report on recent technological developments and scientific results obtained within the framework of this project.

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[2]  J. Bai,et al.  Further detection of the optical low frequency QPO in the black hole transient MAXI J1820+070 , 2018 .

[3]  G. Naletto,et al.  Optical phase coherent timing of the Crab nebula pulsar with Iqueye at the ESO New Technology Telescope , 2014, 1402.2571.

[4]  G. Naletto,et al.  Intensity interferometry with Aqueye+ and Iqueye in Asiago , 2016, Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

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[8]  M. Barbieri,et al.  Timing analysis and pulse profile of the Vela pulsar in the optical band from Iqueye observations , 2018, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

[9]  D. J. Walton,et al.  Exponential increase in X-ray QPO frequency with time in MAXI J1820+070 , 2018 .

[10]  Giampiero Naletto,et al.  Low-frequency optical QPO in MAXI J1820+070 detected with IFI+IQUEYE@Galileo , 2018 .

[11]  Giampiero Naletto,et al.  An extremely bright gamma-ray pulsar in the Large Magellanic Cloud , 2015, Science.

[12]  Giampiero Naletto,et al.  Aqueye Plus: a very fast single photon counter for astronomical photometry to quantum limits equipped with an Optical Vortex coronagraph , 2013, Optics & Photonics - Optical Engineering + Applications.

[13]  R. Schulz,et al.  Simultaneous absolute timing of the Crab pulsar at radio and optical wavelengths , 2008, 0806.3634.

[14]  G. Naletto,et al.  Aqueye optical observations of the Crab Nebula pulsar , 2012, 1210.1796.

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[18]  G. Naletto,et al.  Aqueye+: a new ultrafast single photon counter for optical high time resolution astrophysics , 2015, Europe Optics + Optoelectronics.

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[20]  Fraser Lewis,et al.  Optical observations of MAXI J1820+070 suggest it is a black hole X-ray binary , 2018 .

[21]  Giampiero Naletto,et al.  Other low-frequency optical QPO-like features in MAXI J1820+070 detected with IFI+IQUEYE@Galileo , 2018 .

[22]  Giampiero Naletto,et al.  A 3.9 km baseline intensity interferometry photon counting experiment , 2016, Optical Engineering + Applications.

[23]  Naoki Isobe,et al.  MAXI/GSC detection of a probable new X-ray transient MAXI J1820+070 , 2018 .

[24]  B. J. Shappee,et al.  ASASSN-18ey: The Rise of a New Black Hole X-Ray Binary , 2018, The Astrophysical Journal.

[25]  Juri Poutanen,et al.  Discovery of correlated optical/X-ray quasi-periodic oscillations in black hole binary SWIFT J1753.5–0127 , 2015, 1509.06768.