Numerical calculation and discussion on return photons of polychromatic laser guide stars by a laser beam with 330 nm wavelength

Abstract

The properties of return photons of polychromatic laser guide stars excited by a modeless laser with 330 nm wavelength are investigated in this paper by numerical simulation. The repetition rate, linewidth, initial diameter of laser spot and atmospheric transmittance have great influences on the return photons at 330 nm and 2207 nm from polychromatic laser guide stars. First, the laser linewidth is optimized by solving the rate equations of interaction between laser and sodium atoms. We find that the 0.6 GHz linewidth for the continuous wave laser and the 1.0 GHz linewidth for the pulse laser are beneficial to obtaining the higher excited probability of sodium atoms. Based on the fitted relation between the excitation probability of sodium atoms and laser intensity, considering the random distributions of laser intensity at the mesosphere due to the influence of atmospheric turbulence, the return photons from polychromatic laser guide stars are numerically calculated. The results show that the return photons at 330 nm excited by the continuous-wave laser are more than those excited by the pulse laser. And the return photons excited by continuous-wave laser almost do not fluctuate when laser power arriving at sodium layer is 1 W. Furthermore, effects of the repetition rate of pulse laser and the laser initial diameter on the return photons at 330 nm are studied. The two results are obtained as follows. The first result is that the increment of return photons at 330 nm will converge to a constant value when the repetition rate of pulse laser is over 50 kHz. The second result is that the initial diameter of continuous wave laser has no effect on the return photons but the effect of pulse laser is more obvious. Particularly, the atmospheric transmittance is an important factor of influence because it causes a severe loss of light power at 330 nm wavelength. Under the conditions of 5 km atmospheric visibility and 12.8 cm atmospheric turbulence coherence length, the launched power of pulse laser with 50 ns duration should be more than 34 W for obtaining enough return photons required for the effective detection of atmospheric turbulence tip-tilt with the natural stars. But for the continuous-wave laser, the launched power should be more than 20 W. In the case of 10 km atmospheric visibility, if the same return photons at 330 nm are required, the launched power of pulse laser will also be more than that of the continuous-wave laser under the same conditions. Therefore, the continuous-wave laser has more advantages than the pulse laser in exciting the polychromatic laser guide stars. We hope that the above results will be beneficial to the further experimental research.