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After the success of Hanbury Brown, Davis, and their collaborators in measuring all stellar diameters resolvable by the 166-m interferometer at Narrabri nearly four decades ago, research into optical intensity interferometry was largely discontinued. Signal-to-noise ratios and timing resolutions limited the technique to relatively bright stars over a narrow bandwidth. Modern photon-correlation electronics, however, may help to revive the technique, allowing for increased temporal resolution and longer baselines. In this paper, the PicoHarp 300 Time-Correlated Single Photon Counting System is characterized in order to demonstrate its ability to perform interferometric measurements. Time correlations of coherent and incoherent source apertures are measured and their autocorrelations compared with theory. The speed of light is also directly measured using the shift in temporal correlation between offset detectors. Finally, the possibility of two independent systems, linked between two large-aperture telescopes, is discussed with the goal of determining whether longer baselines can be achieved.

Conference Name: American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #218 ADS Bibcode: 2011AAS...21840904C