LXXIV. A new type of interferometer for use in radio astronomy

Abstract

Summary A new type of interferometer for measuring the diameter of discrete radio sources is described and its mathematical theory is given. The principle of the instrument is based upon the correlation between the rectified outputs of two independent receivers at each end of a baseline, and it is shown that the cross-correlation coefficient between these outputs is proportional to the square of the amplitude of the Fourier transform of the intensity distribution across the source. The analysis shows that it should be possible to operate the new instrument with extremely long baselines and that it should be almost unaffected by ionospheric irregularities.