https://lbnl.zoom.us/j/94928022788?pwd=emVQWG1mTnhSbHVqekVuenk0VEVQZz09

Abstract: Pioneered in the 1950s by Hanbury Brown and Twiss, intensity interferometry refers to the correlation of light intensities incident on two telescopes. As its name suggests, it relies only on photon counting, allowing for interferometry with arbitrarily long baselines in optical wavelengths. Its chief drawbacks are the need for very bright sources and a limited field-of-view, and is thus restricted to date to the study of nearby stellar morphologies. The goal of this talk is twofold: explain how these two disadvantages can be overcome, and present entirely new science cases that this will make possible. First, I will show how recent advances in photodetection technology and spectroscopy will allow us to target the fainter morphologies of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) and establish a novel geometric method to measure the Hubble constant. Next, I will present a new type of telescope array with an optical-path modification, the Extended-Path Intensity Correlation (EPIC), which expands the field-of-view by several orders of magnitude. EPIC will allow for Astrometry at an unprecedented level of precision: bright sources whose separation is as much as an arcsecond can be measured with sub-microarcsecond light-centroiding precision. I will end with a discussion of EPIC’s numerous science cases, including potential Beyond the Standard Model applications.