Ultra-low noise laser and optical frequency comb-based timing system for the Black Hole Explorer (BHEX) mission

Document detail

ID

oai:arXiv.org:2406.10222

Topic

Astrophysics - Instrumentation and...

Author

Tomio, Hannah Yang, Guangning Leopardi, Holly F. Numata, Kenji Yu, Anthony W. Attar, Andrew Xu, Xiaozhen Lu, Wei Gramling, Cheryl Sridharan, T. K. Kurczynski, Peter

Year

2024

listing date

6/19/2024

Keywords

instrumentation bhex

Metrics

Abstract

In this effort, we demonstrate the performance of a highly stable time reference for the proposed Black Hole Explorer (BHEX) mission, a space-based extension to the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) project.

This precision timing system is based on the use of a space-qualified, ultra-low noise laser developed as part of the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) mission as the timing reference, and an optical frequency comb to transfer the stability of this laser to the microwave regime for instrumentation use.

We describe the implementation of this system and experimental setup to characterize the stability performance.

We present the results of this experiment that demonstrate the performance of this system meets requirements for the BHEX mission.

;Comment: To be published in the proceedings of SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation 2024

Tomio, Hannah,Yang, Guangning,Leopardi, Holly F.,Numata, Kenji,Yu, Anthony W.,Attar, Andrew,Xu, Xiaozhen,Lu, Wei,Gramling, Cheryl,Sridharan, T. K.,Kurczynski, Peter, 2024, Ultra-low noise laser and optical frequency comb-based timing system for the Black Hole Explorer (BHEX) mission