Comparison of the Efficiency of Sodium Atom Excitation Schemes for Generating Monochromatic and Polychromatic Laser Guide Stars

Abstract

The efficiency of ten sodium atom excitation schemes that can potentially be used to generate a sodium polychromatic laser guide star (PLGS) and a monochromatic laser guide star (LGS) is compared. It is shown that for creating an LGS in sodium vapor using the cascade fluorescence effect with single-photon excitation, the most suitable is the 4²P_3/2 ← 3²S_1/2 transition excited at a wavelength of 330.237 nm and demonstrating the highest LGS characteristics, while the efficiency decreases by two orders of magnitude compared to a monochromatic LGS at a wavelength of 588.995 nm.