Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics
A Coherent Optical Fiber Link for Very Long Baseline Interferometry
Cecilia Clivati, Roberto Gabriel Aiello, G. Bianco, C. Bortolotti, Valentina Di Sarno, P. Maddaloni, Filippo Levi, G. Maccaferri, Alberto Mura, M. Negusini, Federico Perini, Mauro Roma, Roberto Ricci, Luigi Santamaria Amato, Mario Siciliani de Cumis, Matteo Stagni, Davide Calonico
Abstract
We realize a phase-stabilised optical fiber backbone that connects the Italian National Metrology Institute with two radio telescopes over a 600 km baseline. This allows referencing of Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) facilities with the best atomic frequency standards available today and the implementation of a common-clock architecture, which we are now using to assess VLBI ultimate performances.