发表机构
Stanford University; Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, Stanford University; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; The Observatories of the Carnegie Institution for Science（斯坦福大学; 斯坦福大学粒子天体物理与宇宙学 Kavli 研究所; 麻省理工学院; 麻省理工学院天体物理与空间研究 Kavli 研究所; 卡内基科学机构天文台）
机构由 AI 辅助整理，请以论文原文为准。AI 中文总结
本文提出一种针对亚电子读噪声探测器的最优光子计数方法，在CMOS等仪器上显著提升暗弱源信噪比（最高约130%），并成功探测四颗脉冲星，配套提供lightspeedpy处理流水线。
AI 中文摘要
测量快速天体物理现象需要大量短曝光，而短曝光会遭受重复的读噪声。近期多种技术实现了亚电子读噪声，从而能够对暗弱源进行快速时域研究。这些数据可以用传统方法分析，但分辨单个电子的能力催生了一类更精确的新光子计数技术。我们提出了一种针对亚电子读噪声探测器的光子计数方法，该方法能提供最优的统计不确定性。我们聚焦于互补金属氧化物半导体（CMOS）探测器，并在CMOS仪器“proto-Lightspeed”收集的光学数据上演示了我们的方法，该仪器最近在拉斯坎帕纳斯天文台的麦哲伦克莱望远镜上投入使用。该方法也可应用于非CMOS探测器，如skipper CCD和线性模式雪崩光电二极管。该方法显著改善了暗弱源的分析，将信噪比提高了约130%，若仅依靠数据本身达到同等效果则需要5.3倍的观测时间。作为示例，我们展示了四颗具有确认光学脉冲的正常旋转动力脉冲星的探测，这些探测在不到两小时的总曝光时间内完成。我们提供了lightspeedpy流水线，用于同时采用光子计数和标准技术处理proto-Lightspeed数据。
英文摘要
Measuring rapid astrophysical phenomena requires many short exposures, which suffer from repeated read noise. A variety of recent technologies are achieving sub-electron read noise, which enable rapid time-domain studies of faint sources. These data can be analyzed with traditional methods, but the ability to resolve individual electrons enables a new class of more precise, photon-counting techniques. We present a photon-counting method for sub-electron read noise detectors which delivers optimal statistical uncertainties. We focus on Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) detectors and demonstrate our method on optical data collected by CMOS instrument "proto-Lightspeed," recently commissioned at the Magellan Clay telescope at Las Campanas Observatory. The method can be applied to non-CMOS detectors as well, such as skipper CCDs and linear-mode avalanche photodiodes. The method substantially improves analysis of faint sources, increasing signal to noise ratios by up to $\sim 130\%$, which would require 5.3$\times$ more observing time to accomplish with data alone. As an example we show detections of four normal rotation-powered pulsars with confirmed optical pulses, achieved in under two hours of total exposure. We provide the lightspeedpy pipeline for reducing proto-Lightspeed data with both photon counting and standard techniques.
Comments10+1 pages, 7 figures. Submitted for publication in AJ
