Understanding incomplete scrambling in fibres: experimental investigations

摘要

Recent advances in detection and characterization of exo-planets have led to increasingstandards for repeatability of spectral-line detection of novel high-resolution spectrographs.This is important for exo-planet research but also has its impact on astroseismology and thestudy of variable stars. For these purposes optical fibres bear a huge advantage due to theirimproved scrambling ability - but this is subject to fundamental limits. This investigationgives experimental support for the theoretical proposals made in a companion paper whichuses a ray-tracing approach. We will concentrate on the mechanisms that cause incompletescrambling in order to gain insight in the true nature of scrambling, unlike previous mainlyphenomenological studies.We describe the experimental setup that will be used to determine the fibre response toinput beam parameters like focal ratio, tilt and offset. Preliminary experimental results areconsistent with the theoretical predictions made and thus motivating a further explorationof these phenomena.© (2012) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.