Evaluating a strategy for measuring deformations of the primary reflector of the Green Bank telescope using a terrestrial laser scanner

Astronomical observations in the molecule rich 3-mm window using large reflector antennas provide a unique view of the Universe. To efficiently carry out these observations gravitational and thermal deformations have to be corrected. Terrestrial laser scanners have been used to measure the deformations in large reflector antennas due to gravity, but have not yet been used for measuring thermal deformations. In this work, we investigate the use of a terrestrial laser scanner to measure thermal deformations on the primary reflector of the Green Bank Telescope (GBT). Our method involves the use of differential measurements to reduce the systematic effects of the terrestrial laser scanner. We use the active surface of the primary reflector of the GBT to validate our method and explore its limitations. We find that when using differential measurements it is possible to accurately measure deformations corresponding to different Zernike polynomials down to an amplitude of 60 $\mu$m. The difference between the amplitudes of known deformations and those measured are $<140\mu$m when the wind speed is $\lesssim 2$ m s${}^{-1}$. From these differences we estimate that it should be possible to bring the surface error of the GBT down to $240\pm 6\mu$m. This suggests that using a commercial off-the-shelf terrestrial laser scanner it is possible to measure deformations induced by thermal gradients on a large parabolic reflector.