Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-physics-2-paper-of-the-university-of-oxford/2021-resit/7/c/solution

Two nearby directions separated by focus at transverse separation . To avoid a receiver covering both geometric image centres at once, its diameter should not exceed this separation along the orbital direction:
This is the usual receiver-size estimate from angular resolution. The Airy disk first-minimum diameter is , but that is a spot-size definition, not the same as the receiver's allowed angular acceptance. At the Rayleigh criterion, the images already overlap; integrating over a finite receiver further reduces contrast. Consequently is an order-of-resolution upper scale, not a sharp universal boundary for a specified signal discrimination probability. A detailed limit would require the receiver response and a resolving criterion.

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