OBLIVION: Observing Black hole LIght Via Intensity cOrrelatioN

PS2I proposes a roughly 50‑element array of spacecraft, each carrying a 4‑meter deployable reflector and a heterodyne receiver, with baselines of 1–2 km and about 100 GHz of bandwidth to enable unprecedented resolution and sensitivity at submillimeter wavelengths (0.5 to 0.05 mm). The mission leverages optical frequency comb‑based photonic technology for high‑throughput signal transport, correlation, phasing, synchronization, and calibration, offering major size, weight, and power advantages for space deployment. Development of OFC‑based photonic systems includes wide‑bandwidth signal transport, local oscillator generation, photonic lag cross‑correlators, interferometer phasing and synchronization, baseline calibration, and group delay calibration. In addition to heterodyne interferometry, the Hanbury Brown–Twiss (HBT) effect—correlation and anti‑correlation in intensities received by two detectors from a particle beam—can be exploited for astrophysical measurements. While current Earth‑ or lunar‑based VLBI systems provide long baselines (thousands to hundreds of thousands of miles), these pale in comparison to a 10‑million‑mile separation, where angular resolution scales proportionally and enables HBT‑based studies of supermassive black holes. Combined with declining launch costs, lightweight antennas, and efficient front‑ends, PS2I is intended to be technically and economically viable within 15–20 years. It targets two science goals: sub‑AU imaging of protoplanetary disks within 50 pc to reveal disk structure, dust evolution, and planet formation timescales; and spectral imaging of [C II] 158‑micron emission from galaxies at redshifts z=1–2 to probe gas kinematics and morphology during peak cosmic star formation.

Interplanetary VLBI-enabled HBT allows the evaluation of theoretical models with direct observations. One measurement goal is a 1% measurement of b_null which constrains d_sh to ±1%, enough to distinguish “hairy” or other nonKerr metrics that deviate by a few percent. Such very small angle has previously been inaccessible except via full-aperture imaging arrays; HBT allows a direct null-detection

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