Research on Stellar Occultation Detection with Bandpass Filtering for Oxygen Density Retrieval

Abstract

Stellar occultation instruments detect the transmission of stellar spectra through the planetary atmosphere to retrieve densities of various atmospheric components. This paper introduces an idea of using instruments with bandpass filters for stellar occultation detection. According to the characteristics of the occultation technique for oxygen density measurement, a full-link forward model is established, and the average transmission under a typical nocturnal atmosphere is calculated with the help of the HITRAN database, occultation simulation and a 3D ray-tracing program. The central wavelength and bandwidth suitable for 760 nm oxygen A-band absorption measurement are discussed. This paper also compares the results of the forward model with GOMOS spectrometer data under this band, calculates the observation signal-to-noise ratio corresponding to different instrument parameters, and target star magnitudes. The results of this paper provide a theoretical basis for the development of a stellar occultation technique with a bandpass filter and guidance on the instrument design.

Keywords

• stellar occultation
• atmospheric detection
• oxygen density
• bandpass filtering