Rayleigh-Brillouin scattering to determine one-dimensional temperature and number density profiles of a gas flow field.

Rayleigh-Brillouin spectra for heated nitrogen gas were measured by imaging the output of a Fabry-Perot interferometer onto a CCD array. The spectra were compared with the theoretical 6-moment model of Rayleigh-Brillouin scattering convolved with the Fabry-Perot instrument function. Estimates of the temperature and a dimensionless parameter proportional to the number density of the gas as functions of position in the laser beam were calculated by least-squares deviation fits between theory and experiment.