Scholarship & Research
Permanent URI for this communityhttps://scholarworks.montana.edu/handle/1/1
Browse
6 results
Search Results
Item Laser frequency stabilization to spectral hole burning frequency references in erbium-doped crystals : material and device optimization(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2002) Bottger, ThomasItem The diode-pumped continuous-wave Raman laser : classical, Quantum, and thermo-optic fundamentals(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2002) Roos, Peter AaronItem Two-photon absorption and two-photon-resonant four-wave mixing for the Tb^3+ ion in insulators(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 1987) Huang, JinItem Oxidation of N:Al(110)(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 1990) Brown, Wade WilliamItem Building a Raman laser pump source capable of generating flexible pulse durations while maintaining high spatial quality(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2009) Wagemann, Stephen Scott; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Wm. Randall BabbittA detailed characterization of a Raman pump laser throughout the construction process is reported. Due to specific requirements for the pulsed Raman experiment, there were no commercially available pump lasers capable of meeting our specifications. The pump source must produce high energy pulses of 50mJ to 100mJ with variable duration centered at 200ns. To create this pump source, the pulses are gated from a CW source and then amplified with a high gain Nd:YAG amplification system. High spatial quality is also a necessity as the laser needs to be coupled into a small diameter waveguide functioning as the Raman cell. The laser was found to operate well, producing the required energy with the desired pulse flexibility. However, the amplification process induced spatial distortion that effectively produced a super Gaussian intensity distribution.Item Data analysis for space-based gravitational wave detectors(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2006) Crowder, Jefferson Osborn; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Neil J. CornishWith the launch of the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) expected for the next decade, the nascent field of gravitational wave astronomy will be taking a giant leap forward. The data that will be gathered from space-borne gravitational wave detectors such as LISA will provide an expansive look through a new window on the Universe. This dissertation is presented to help open that window by exploring some of the techniques and methods that will be needed to understand the data from these detectors. The first original work presented here investigates the resolution of LISA and follow-on space-based gravitational wave missions. This work presents the methods of measuring the precision of these detectors and gives results for their resolving power for a large class of expected gravitational wave sources. The second original investigation involves the effect that multiple gravitational wave sources will have on the resolution of LISA. Previous results concerning detector resolution were limited to isolated sources of gravitational waves. As LISA is an allsky detector, it is necessary to understand the role played by concurrent detection of numerous sources. This work derives an extension of the Fisher Information Matrix approach for determining parameter resolution, and applies it to multiple sources for LISA. The next original work is an exploration of the method of genetic algorithms on the problem of extracting the binary parameters of gravitational wave sources from the LISA data stream. These are global algorithms providing a means to cover the entire search space of parameter values. This work describes the basics of and provides the results for such genetic algorithm-based searches, with a focus on improving algorithm efficiency. The last original work included is a study of Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods applied to parameter extraction of gravitational wave sources in the LISA data stream. This work shows how an MCMC approach provides a global means of both searching for and characterizing the distributions of the source parameters. Results also show that distributions found by this global method match with previous approaches that were limited to regions local to the source parameters.