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Register a new userA new wavelength calibration for echelle spectrographs using Fabry-Perot etalons
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The study of Earth-mass extrasolar planets via the radial-velocity technique and the measurement of the potential cosmological variability of fundamental constants call for very-high-precision spectroscopy at the level of $updeltalambda/lambda<10^{-9}$. Wavelength accuracy is obtained by providing two fundamental ingredients: 1) an absolute and information-rich wavelength source and 2) the ability of the spectrograph and its data reduction of transferring the reference scale (wavelengths) to a measurement scale (detector pixels) in a repeatable manner. The goal of this work is to improve the wavelength calibration accuracy of the HARPS spectrograph by combining the absolute spectral reference provided by the emission lines of a thorium-argon hollow-cathode lamp (HCL) with the spectrally rich and precise spectral information of a Fabry-Perot-based calibration source. On the basis of calibration frames acquired each night since the Fabry-Perot etalon was installed on HARPS in 2011, we construct a combined wavelength solution which fits simultaneously the thorium emission lines and the Fabry-Perot lines. The combined fit is anchored to the absolute thorium wavelengths, which provide the `zero-point of the spectrograph, while the Fabry-Perot lines are used to improve the (spectrally) local precision. The obtained wavelength solution is verified for auto-consistency and tested against a solution obtained using the HARPS Laser-Frequency Comb (LFC). The combined thorium+Fabry-Perot wavelength solution shows significantly better performances compared to the thorium-only calibration. The presented techniques will therefore be used in the new HARPS and HARPS-N pipeline, and will be exported to the ESPRESSO spectrograph.
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We describe techniques concerning wavelength calibration and sky subtraction to maximise the scientific utility of data from tunable filter instruments. While we specifically address data from the Optical System for Imaging and low Resolution Integrated Spectroscopy instrument (OSIRIS) on the 10.4~m Gran Telescopio Canarias telescope, our discussion is generalisable to data from other tunable filter instruments. A key aspect of our methodology is a coordinate transformation to polar coordinates, which simplifies matters when the tunable filter data is circularly symmetric around the optical centre. First, we present a method for rectifying inaccuracies in the wavelength calibration using OH sky emission rings. Using this technique, we improve the absolute wavelength calibration from an accuracy of 5 Angstroms to 1 Angstrom, equivalent to ~7% of our instrumental resolution, for 95% of our data. Then, we discuss a new way to estimate the background sky emission by median filtering in polar coordinates. This method suppresses contributions to the sky background from the outer envelopes of distant galaxies, maximising the fluxes of sources measured in the corresponding sky-subtracted images. We demonstrate for data tuned to a central wavelength of 7615~$rmAA$ that galaxy fluxes in the new sky-subtracted image are ~37% higher, versus a sky-subtracted image from existing methods for OSIRIS tunable filter data.
We describe the recent modifications to the data reduction technique for observations acquired with the scanning Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) mounted on the 6-m telescope of the Special Astrophysical Observatory that allow the wavelength scale to be correctly computed in the case of large mutual offsets of studied objects in interferograms. Also the parameters of the scanning FPIs used in the SCORPIO-2 multimode focal reducer are considered.
An all-fiber, micro-pulse and eye-safe high spectral resolution wind lidar (HSRWL) at 1550nm is proposed and demonstrated by using a pair of upconversion single-photon detectors and a fiber Fabry-Perot scanning interferometer (FFP-SI). In order to improve the optical detection efficiency, both the transmission spectrum and the reflection spectrum of the FFP-SI are used for spectral analyses of the aerosol backscatter and the reference laser pulse. The reference signal is tapped from the outgoing laser and served as a zero velocity indicator. The Doppler shift is retrieved from a frequency response function Q, which is defined as the ratio of difference of the transmitted signal and the reflected signal to their sum. Taking advantages of high signal-to-noise ratio of the detectors and high spectral resolution of the FFP-SI, the Q spectra of the aerosol backscatter are reconstructed along the line-of-sight (LOS) of the telescope. By applying a least squares fit procedure to the measured Q spectra, the center frequencies and the bandwidths are obtained simultaneously. And then the Doppler shifts are determined relative to the center frequency of the reference signal. To eliminate the influence of temperature fluctuations on the FFP-SI, the FFP-SI is cased in a chamber with temperature stability of 0.001 during the measurement. Continuous LOS wind observations are carried out on two days at Hefei (31.843 N, 117.265 E), China. In the meantime, LOS wind measurements from the HSRWL show good agreement with the results from an ultrasonic wind sensor (Vaisala windcap WMT52). Due to the computational expensive of the convolution operation of the Q function, an empirical method is adopted to evaluate the quality of the measurements. The standard deviation of the wind speed is 0.76 m/s at the 1.8 km. The standard deviation of the retrieved bandwidth variation is 2.07 MHz at the 1.8 km.
Displacement calibration of nanomechanical plate resonators presents a challenging task. Large nanomechanical resonator thickness reduces the amplitude of the resonator motion due to its increased spring constant and mass, and its unique reflectance. Here, we show that the plate thickness, resonator gap height, and motional amplitude of circular and elliptical drum resonators, can be determined in-situ by exploiting the fundamental interference phenomenon in Fabry-Perot cavities. The proposed calibration scheme uses optical contrasts to uncover thickness and spacer height profiles, and reuse the results to convert the photodetector signal to the displacement of drumheads that are electromotively driven in their linear regime. Calibrated frequency response and spatial mode maps enable extraction of the modal radius, effective mass, effective driving force, and Youngs elastic modulus of the drumhead material. This scheme is applicable to any configuration of Fabry-Perot cavities, including plate and membrane resonators.
Precise wavelength calibration is a critical issue for high-resolution spectroscopic observations. The ideal calibration source should be able to provide a very stable and dense grid of evenly distributed spectral lines of constant intensity. A new method which satisfies all mentioned conditions has been developed by our group. The approach is to actively measure the exact position of a single spectral line of a Fabry-Perot etalon with very high precision with a wavelength-tuneable laser and compare it to an extremely stable wavelength standard. The ideal choice of standard is the D2 absorption line of Rubidium, which has been used as an optical frequency standard for decades. With this technique, the problem of stable wavelength calibration of spectrographs becomes a problem of how reliably we can measure and anchor one etalon line to the Rb transition. In this work we present our self-built module for Rb saturated absorption spectroscopy and discuss its stability.
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