Bibcode
Vogt, Frédéric P. A.; Kerber, Florian; Mehner, Andrea; Yu, Shanshan; Pfrommer, Thomas; Lo Curto, Gaspare; Figueira, Pedro; Parraguez, Diego; Pepe, Francesco A.; Mégevand, Denis; Riva, Marco; Di Marcantonio, Paolo; Lovis, Christophe; Amate, Manuel; Molaro, Paolo; Cabral, Alexandre; Osorio, Maria Rosa Zapatero
Bibliographical reference
Physical Review Letters, Volume 123, Issue 6, id.061101
Advertised on:
8
2019
Journal
Citations
8
Refereed citations
7
Description
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 λ /Δ λ ˜140 000 . In 900 s on
source, we detect the pure rotational Raman lines of
16O2, 14N2, and
14N 15N (tentatively) up to rotational quantum
numbers J of 27, 24, and 9, respectively. We detect the
16O2 fine-structure lines induced by the
interaction of the electronic spin S and end-over-end rotational angular
momentum N in the electronic ground state of this molecule up to N =9 .
The same spectrum also reveals the ν1 ←0
rotational-vibrational Q-branch for 16O2 and
14N2 14. These observations demonstrate the
potential of using laser guide-star systems as accurate calibration
sources for characterizing new astronomical spectrographs.