Signal-to-noise ratio in differential speckle interferometry

Abstract
Expressions are given for the signal-to-noise ratio of the amplitude and for the uncertainty of the phase of the cross spectrum of two speckle images in the presence of photon shot noise. Applications to astronomical observations are discussed. A maximum-likelihood estimate is derived for the speckle displacement in a differential speckle-interferometric experiment, and its variance is computed. A relation is given between the size of the smallest detectable feature and the stellar magnitude, showing that this technique is quite promising.

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