Rotational and rotational-vibrational Raman spectroscopy of air to characterize astronomical spectrographs
| Title: | Rotational and rotational-vibrational Raman spectroscopy of air to characterize astronomical spectrographs |
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| Authors: | Vogt, F. P. A., Kerber, F., Mehner, A., Yu, S., Pfrommer, T., Curto, G. Lo, Figueira, P., Parraguez, D., Pepe, F. A., Mégevand, D., Riva, M., Di Marcantonio, P., Lovis, C., Amate, M., Molaro, P., Cabral, A., Osorio, M. R. Zapatero |
| Publication Year: | 2019 |
| Collection: | Astrophysics Physics (Other) |
| Subject Terms: | Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics, Physics - Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics, Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors |
| More Details: | Raman scattering enables unforeseen uses for the laser guide-star system of the Very Large Telescope. Here, we present the observation of one up-link sodium laser beam acquired with the ESPRESSO spectrograph at a resolution $\lambda/\Delta\lambda \sim 140'000$. In 900s on-source, we detect the pure rotational Raman lines of $^{16}$O$_2$, $^{14}$N$_2$, and $^{14}$N$^{15}$N (tentatively) up to rotational quantum numbers $J$ of 27, 24, and 9, respectively. We detect the $^{16}$O$_2$ fine-structure lines induced by the interaction of the electronic spin \textbf{S} and end-over-end rotational angular momentum \textbf{N} in the electronic ground state of this molecule up to $N=9$. The same spectrum also reveals the $\nu_{1\leftarrow0}$ rotational-vibrational Q-branch for $^{16}$O$_2$ and $^{14}$N$_2$. These observations demonstrate the potential of using laser guide-star systems as accurate calibration sources for characterizing new astronomical spectrographs. Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures. Accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters |
| Document Type: | Working Paper |
| DOI: | 10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.061101 |
| Access URL: | http://arxiv.org/abs/1907.05897 |
| Accession Number: | edsarx.1907.05897 |
| Database: | arXiv |
| DOI: | 10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.061101 |
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