Suggested 14-Week Course Schedule

This is a reading and project sequence designed around a single semester. The course can be compressed or expanded, but Chapters A Guided Tour: What Does a Telescope Actually Record, and Where Is This Book Taking You?–Correlators and Event-Table Data Analysis are best kept intact; all of the later science cases depend on the language of event tables, coherence functions, instrumental errors, and correlators.

Course Goals and Grading Structure

By the end of the course, students should be able to start from a science question and write down the observable, the event-table fields, the core formulas, the order of magnitude, the error budget, the null tests, and reproducible code. A suggested grading structure is: weekly reading notes \(20\%\), three short computational assignments \(30\%\), one midterm project design \(20\%\), and a final project report and code \(30\%\).

Deliverable	Content	Evaluation criteria
Reading notes	1 page per week, listing the main observables, formulas, orders of magnitude, and open questions.	Whether the conditions of validity of the formulas are understood, not substituting copied summaries for understanding.
Short assignments	Event tables, \(g^{(2)}\), visibility, Fisher information, or error budgets.	Correct units, clear figures, runnable code.
Midterm design	An executable observing or experimental plan.	Whether the photon rate, baseline, background, calibration, and failure criteria are complete.
Final project	Code, PDF figures, a short report, and null tests.	Whether it can be reproduced, whether systematic errors are explained.

Weeks 1–5: Foundations and Instruments

Week	Reading	Class focus	Assignment
1	Chapter A Guided Tour: What Does a Telescope Actually Record, and Where Is This Book Taking You?	Event tables, observables, units, and orders of magnitude.	From the same event table, generate a light curve and one simple statistic.
2	Chapters A Guided Tour: What Does a Telescope Actually Record, and Where Is This Book Taking You?–Single-Mode States of Light: Number, Coherent, Thermal, and Squeezed States	Why the mean intensity is not enough; common light states.	Compare the count statistics of thermal light and coherent light.
3	Chapter The Coherence Functions g^{(1)}, g^{(2)} and the Siegert Relation	\(g^{(1)}\), \(g^{(2)}\), the Siegert relation, and multimode dilution.	Plot the \(g^{(2)}\) contrast for different mode numbers and time bins.
4	Chapter Spatial Coherence, van Cittert–Zernike, and Intensity Interferometry	VCZ, uniform disk, binary stars, and intensity-interferometry SNR.	Fit the angular diameter of a simulated uniform disk.
5	Chapters Detectors, Clocks, and Event Tables–Correlators and Event-Table Data Analysis	Detectors, time synchronization, correlators, and null tests.	Write an event-table correlator and complete a time-shift check.

Weeks 6–10: Source Models and Science Questions

Week	Reading	Class focus	Assignment
6	Chapter Quantum Estimation, the Rayleigh Limit, and SPADE Sub-Rayleigh Resolution	Rayleigh curse, SPADE, and Fisher information.	Compare the small-separation error of direct imaging versus mode measurement.
7	Chapters The Quantum Language of Astrophysical Radiation Mechanisms–Stars as Quantum Light Sources	Radiation mechanisms, the thermal-light approximation, stellar angular diameters, and binaries.	Use $
8	Chapters White Dwarfs, Neutron Stars, and Strong-Field Physics–Black Holes, Accretion Disks, and the Photon Ring	Compact objects, pulsars, black holes, and the photon ring.	Design an event table that preserves phase or time tags.
9	Chapter Bursts, Transients, and Multi-Messenger Quantum Astronomy	Transient triggers, angular expansion, and multi-messenger delays.	Build a Type Ia or nova angular-expansion toy model.
10	Chapters Propagation Effects: Plasma, Dust, and Gravitational Lensing–Quantum Problems in Cosmology	Propagation, polarization rotation, lensing, new physics, and the CMB.	Distinguish an ordinary propagation term from a new-physics candidate.

Weeks 11–14: Design, Project, and Report

Week	Reading	Class focus	Assignment
11	Chapters Quantum-Network Telescopes–Observation Design, Error Budget, and Feasibility	Quantum-network boundaries, observing design, and error budgets.	Write a one-page observing-proposal abstract.
12	Chapter First-Generation Quantum-Astronomy Science Cases	Ranking of first-generation science cases.	Assign readiness scores to three candidate projects.
13	Chapters Teaching Experiments and Computational Experiments–Common Misconceptions	Teaching experiments, common pitfalls, false alarms, and new-physics boundaries.	Complete the project code, figures, and two null tests.
14	Chapter From White Paper to Research Plan	From a textbook project to a proposal.	Submit the final report, code, and milestone table.

Final Project Topic Bank

Topic	Basic content	Suggested extension
Tabletop HBT	Event table, delay histogram, time-shift, response kernel.	Compare laser, LED, and pseudothermal light.
Uniform-disk fit	$	V
Binary intensity interferometry	Flux ratio, angular separation, position angle, and multi-baseline degeneracy.	Add orbital phase and mirror degeneracy.
SPADE toy model	Mode probabilities, Fisher information, crosstalk, and background.	Compare different PSFs or centroid errors.
Type Ia distance	Angular radius, velocity, explosion time, and distance posterior.	Add asphericity or a velocity gradient.
False-alarm analysis	Poisson tails, trial factor, global significance.	Use a real or simulated search grid.