Modeling of pulsed-laser guide stars for the Thirty Meter Telescope project
Abstract
The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) has been designed to include an adaptive optics system and associated laser guide star (LGS) facility to correct for the image distortion due to Earth's atmospheric turbulence and achieve diffraction-limited imaging. We have calculated the response of mesospheric sodium atoms to a pulsed laser that has been proposed for use in the LGS facility, including modeling of the atomic physics, the light–atom interactions, and the effect of the geomagnetic field and atomic collisions. This particular pulsed-laser format is shown to provide comparable photon return to a continuous-wave (cw) laser of the same average power; both the cw and pulsed lasers have the potential to satisfy the TMT design requirements for photon return flux.
Additional Information
© 2012 Optical Society of America. Received April 10, 2012; accepted June 4, 2012; posted June 20, 2012 (Doc. ID 166420); published August 1, 2012. The TMT Project gratefully acknowledges the support of the TMT collaborating institutions. They are the Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy (ACURA), the California Institute of Technology, the University of California, the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, the National Astronomical Observatories of China and their consortium partners, and the Department of Science and Technology of India and their supported institutes. This work was supported as well by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation, the National Research Council of Canada, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the British Columbia Knowledge Development Fund, the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) and the U.S. National Science Foundation. The authors also acknowledge the invaluable assistance of the Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.Attached Files
Published - Rochester_JOptSocAmB2012p2176.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 34798
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20121009-142521141
- Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy (ACURA)
- Caltech
- University of California
- National Astronomical Observatory of Japan
- National Astronomical Observatories of China
- Department of Science and Technology of India
- Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
- Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI)
- Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation
- National Research Council of Canada
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
- British Columbia Knowledge Development Fund
- Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA)
- NSF
- Created
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2012-10-10Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-09Created from EPrint's last_modified field