Introduction to Optical/IR Interferometry: history and basic principles

TL;DR

This paper provides a comprehensive introduction to optical/IR interferometry, covering its history, fundamental principles, key theorems, and applications, aimed at readers new to the field.

Contribution

It offers a clear overview of the basic concepts, historical development, and essential theorems of optical/IR interferometry, serving as an educational resource.

Findings

Historical overview from Fizeau to modern interferometers

Explanation of light coherence and key theorems

Examples of modern interferometric results

Abstract

The present notes refer to a lecture delivered on 27 September 2017 in Roscoff during the 2017 Evry Schatzman School. It concerns a general introduction to optical/IR interferometry, including a brief history, a presentation of the basic principles, some important theorems and relevant applications.The layout of these lecture notes is as follows. After a short introduction, we proceed with some reminders concerning the representation of a field of electromagnetic radiation. We then present a short history of interferometry, from the first experiment of Fizeau and Stefan to modern optical interferometers. We then discuss the notions of light coherence, including the van Cittert - Zernicke theorem and describe the principle of interferometry using two telescopes. We present some examples of modern interferometers and typical results obtained with these. Finally, we address three important theorems: the fundamental theorem, the convolution theorem and the Wiener-Khinchin theorem which enable to get a better insight into the field of optical/IR interferometry.