Astro-comb: revolutionizing precision spectroscopy in astrophysics
Abstract
Searches for extrasolar planets using the periodic Doppler shift of stellar spectral lines have recently achieved a precision better than 60cm/s. To find a 1-Earth mass planet in an Earth-like orbit, a precision of 5cm/s is necessary. The combination of a laser frequency comb with a Fabry-Perot filtering cavity has been suggested as a promising approach to achieve such Doppler shift resolution via improved spectrograph wavelength calibration. Here we report the fabrication of such a filtered laser comb with up to 40 GHz (~1 Angstrom) line spacing, generated from a 1 GHz repetition-rate source, without compromising long-term stability, reproducibility or spectral resolution. This wide-line-spacing comb (astro-comb) is well matched to the resolving power of high-resolution astrophysical spectrographs. The astrocomb should allow a precision as high as 1cm/s in astronomical readial velocity measurements.
- Publication:
-
Transiting Planets
- Pub Date:
- February 2009
- DOI:
- 10.1017/S174392130802704X
- Bibcode:
- 2009IAUS..253..499C