Laser-absorption tomography beam arrangement optimization using resolution matrices

Laser-absorption tomography experiments infer the concentration distribution of a gas species from the attenuation of lasers transecting the flow field. Although reconstruction accuracy strongly depends on the layout of optical components, to date experimentalists have had no way to predict the performance of a given beam arrangement. This paper shows how the mathematical properties of the coefficient matrix are related to the information content of the attenuation data, which, in turn, forms a basis for a beam-arrangement design algorithm that minimizes the reliance on additional assumed information about the concentration distribution. When applied to a simulated laser-absorption tomography experiment, optimized beam arrangements are shown to produce more accurate reconstructions compared to other beam arrangements presented in the literature.