Estimation of fringe parameters

In this report we explore replacing the widely used optimal V2 estimator with a model-fitting approach. We show that it is possible to fit the fringe power spectra with a physically reasonable model. This approach eliminates the biggest problem with the standard squared visibility estimator - determining the additive, dector-noise bias. We examine the dependence of the bias on count rate for consistency betwee on- and off-fringe measurements. The change of bias with fringe frequency provides additional information about the performance of the detectors. We have also applied a similar approach to the bias correction for the triple product, with comparable results.