Relative stability of two laser frequency combs for routine operation on HARPS and FOCES

Probst, Rafael A.; Lo Curto, Gaspare; Ávila, Gerardo; Brucalassi, Anna; Canto Martins, Bruno L.; Castro Leao, Izan de; Esposito, Massimiliano; González Hernández, Jonay I.; Grupp, Frank; Hänsch, Theodor W.; Holzwarth, Ronald; Kellermann, Hanna; Kerber, Florian; Mandel, Olaf; Manescau, Antonio; Pasquini, Luca; Pozna, Eszter; Rebolo, Rafael; Renan de Medeiros, José; Stark, Sebastian P.; Steinmetz, Tilo; Suárez Mascareño, Alejandro; Udem, Thomas; Urrutia, Josefina and Wu, Yuanjie (2016): Relative stability of two laser frequency combs for routine operation on HARPS and FOCES. Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy VI, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, 26-30 June 2016. Evans, Christopher J. (ed.) : In: Ground-Based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy VI : 26-30 June 2016, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, 990864 Bellingham, Washington: SPIE.

Abstract

We report on the installation of a laser frequency comb (LFC) at the HARPS spectrograph, which we characterize relative to a second LFC that we had brought to HARPS for testing. This allowed us for the first time to probe the relative stability of two independent astronomical LFCs over an extended wavelength range. Both LFCs covered the spectral range of HARPS from at least 460 to 690 nm. After optimization of the fiber coupling to HARPS to suppress modal noise, a relative stability of the two LFCs in the low cm/s range was obtained. In combination with the results of our four earlier LFC test campaigns on HARPS, the available data now cover a time span of more than six years.

• Item Type: Conference or Workshop Item (Report)
• Faculties: Physics
• Subjects: 500 Science > 530 Physics
• ISSN: 0277-786X
• Place of Publication: Bellingham, Washington
• Language: English