No Arabic abstract
We present two novel designs for a telescope suitable for massively-multiplexed spectroscopy. The first is a very wide field Cassegrain telescope optimised for fibre feeding. It provides a Field Of View (FOV) of 2.5 degrees diameter with a 10m primary mirror. It is telecentric and works at F/3, optimal for fibre injection. As an option, a gravity invariant focus for the central 10 arc-minutes can be added, to host, for instance, a giant integral field unit (IFU). It has acceptable performance in the 360-1300 nm wavelength range. The second concept is an innovative five mirror telescope design based on a Three Mirror Anastigmatic (TMA) concept. The design provides a large FOV in a convenient, gravity- invariant focal plane, and is scalable to a range of telescope diameters. As specific example, we present a 10m telescope with a 1.5 degree diameter FOV and a relay system that allows simultaneous spectroscopy with 10,000 mini-IFUs over a square degree, or, alternatively a 17.5 square arcminutes giant IFU, by using 240 MUSE-type spectrographs. We stress the importance of developing the telescope and instrument designs for both cases.
Hector will be the new massively-multiplexed integral field spectroscopy (IFS) instrument for the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) in Australia and the next main dark-time instrument for the observatory. Based on the success of the SAMI instrument, which is undertaking a 3400-galaxy survey, the integral field unit (IFU) imaging fibre bundle (hexabundle) technology under-pinning SAMI is being improved to a new innovative design for Hector. The distribution of hexabundle angular sizes is matched to the galaxy survey properties in order to image 90% of galaxies out to 2 effective radii. 50-100 of these IFU imaging bundles will be positioned by starbug robots across a new 3-degree field corrector top end to be purpose-built for the AAT. Many thousand fibres will then be fed into new replicable spectrographs. Fundamentally new science will be achieved compared to existing instruments due to Hectors wider field of view (3 degrees), high positioning efficiency using starbugs, higher spectroscopic resolution (R~3000-5500 from 3727-7761A, with a possible redder extension later) and large IFUs (up to 30 arcsec diameter with 61-217 fibre cores). A 100,000 galaxy IFS survey with Hector will decrypt how the accretion and merger history and large-scale environment made every galaxy different in its morphology and star formation history. The high resolution, particularly in the blue, will make Hector the only instrument to be able to measure higher-order kinematics for galaxies down to much lower velocity dispersion than in current large IFS galaxy surveys, opening up a wealth of new nearby galaxy science.
Very fast (f/1.2 and f/1.35) transmissive spectrograph designs are presented for Hector and MSE. The designs have 61mm x 61mm detectors, 4 or 5 camera lenses of aperture less than 228mm, with just 6 air/glass surfaces, and rely on extreme aspheres for their imaging performance. The throughput is excellent, because of the i-line glasses used, the small number of air/glass surfaces.
In this paper we present the Australian Astronomical Observatorys concept design for Sphinx - a fiber positioned with 4332 spines on a 7.77mm pitch for CFHTs Mauna Kea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE) Telescope. Based on the Echidna technology used with FMOS (on Subaru) and 4MOST (on VISTA), the next evolution of the tilting spine design delivers improved performance and superior allocation efficiency. Several prototypes have been constructed that demonstrate the suitability of the new design for MSE. Results of prototype testing are presented, along with an analysis of the impact of tilting spines on the overall survey efficiency. The Sphinx fiber positioned utilizes a novel metrology system for spine position feedback. The metrology design and the careful considerations required to achieve reliable, high accuracy measurements of all fibres in a realistic telescope environment are also presented.
The Prime Focus Spectrograph (PFS) is an optical/near-infrared multifiber spectrograph with 2394 science fibers distributed across a 1.3-deg diameter field of view at the Subaru 8.2-m telescope. The wide wavelength coverage from 0.38 {mu}m to 1.26 {mu}m, with a resolving power of 3000, simultaneously strengthens its ability to target three main survey programs: cosmology, galactic archaeology and galaxy/AGN evolution. A medium resolution mode with a resolving power of 5000 for 0.71 {mu}m to 0.89 {mu}m will also be available by simply exchanging dispersers. We highlight some of the technological aspects of the design. To transform the telescope focal ratio, a broad-band coated microlens is glued to each fiber tip. A higher transmission fiber is selected for the longest part of the cable system, optimizing overall throughput; a fiber with low focal ratio degradation is selected for the fiber-positioner and fiber-slit components, minimizing the effects of fiber movements and fiber bending. Fiber positioning will be performed by a positioner consisting of two stages of piezo-electric rotary motors. The positions of these motors are measured by taking an image of artificially back-illuminated fibers with the metrology camera located in the Cassegrain container; the fibers are placed in the proper location by iteratively measuring and then adjusting the positions of the motors. Target light reaches one of the four identical fast-Schmidt spectrograph modules, each with three arms. The PFS project has passed several project-wide design reviews and is now in the construction phase.
We present Simulated Annealing fiber-to-target allocation simulations for the proposed DESI and 4MOST massively multiplexed spectroscopic surveys, and for both Poisson and realistically clustered mock target samples. We simulate both Echidna and theta-phi actuator designs, including the restrictions caused by the physical actuator characteristics during repositioning. For DESI, with theta-phi actuators, used in 5 passes over the sky for a mock ELG/LRG/QSO sample, with matched fiber and target densities, a total target allocation yield of 89.3% was achieved, but only 83.7% for the high-priority Ly-alpha QSOs. If Echidna actuators are used with the same pitch and number of passes, the yield increases by 5.7% and 16% respectively. Echidna also allows a factor-of-two increase in the number of close Ly-alpha QSO pairs that can be observed. Echidna spine tilt causes a variable loss of throughput, with average loss being the same as the loss at the rms tilt. With a natural tilt minimization scheme, we find an rms tilt always close to 0.58 x maximum. There is an additional but much smaller defocus loss, equivalent to an average defocus of 30microns. These tilt losses offset the gains in yield for Echidna, but because the survey strategy is driven by the higher priority targets, a clear survey speed advantage remains. For 4MOST, high and low latitude sample mock catalogs were supplied by the 4MOST team, and allocations were carried out with the proposed Echidna-based positioner geometry. At high latitudes, the resulting target completeness was 85.3% for LR targets and 78.9% for HR targets. At low latitude, the target completeness was 93.9% for LR targets and 71.2% for HR targets.