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The InfraRed Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) will be a first-light client instrument for the Narrow Field Infrared Adaptive Optics System (NFIRAOS) on the Thirty Meter Telescope. IRIS includes three configurable tip/tilt (TT) or tip/tilt/focus (TTF) On-Instrument Wavefront Sensors (OIWFS). These sensors are positioned over natural guide star (NGS) asterisms using movable polar-coordinate pick-off arms (POA) that patrol an approximately 2-arcminute circular field-of-view (FOV). The POAs are capable of colliding with one another, so an algorithm for coordinated motion that avoids contact is required. We have adopted an approach in which arm motion is evaluated using the gradient descent of a scalar potential field that includes an attractive component towards the goal configuration (locations of target stars), and repulsive components to avoid obstacles (proximity to adjacent arms). The resulting vector field is further modified by adding a component transverse to the repulsive gradient to avoid problematic local minima in the potential. We present path planning simulations using this computationally inexpensive technique, which exhibit smooth and efficient trajectories.
The first light instrument on the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) project will be the InfraRed Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS). IRIS will be mounted on a bottom port of the facility AO instrument NFIRAOS. IRIS will report guiding information to the NFIRAOS through the On-Instrument Wavefront Sensor (OIWFS) that is part of IRIS. This will be in a self-contained compartment of IRIS and will provide three deployable wavefront sensor probe arms. This entire unit will be rotated to provide field de-rotation. Currently in our preliminary design stage our efforts have included: prototyping of the probe arm to determine the accuracy of this critical component, handling cart design and reviewing different types of glass for the atmospheric dispersion.
We present an overview of the design of IRIS, an infrared (0.84 - 2.4 micron) integral field spectrograph and imaging camera for the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). With extremely low wavefront error (<30 nm) and on-board wavefront sensors, IRIS will take advantage of the high angular resolution of the narrow field infrared adaptive optics system (NFIRAOS) to dissect the sky at the diffraction limit of the 30-meter aperture. With a primary spectral resolution of 4000 and spatial sampling starting at 4 milliarcseconds, the instrument will create an unparalleled ability to explore high redshift galaxies, the Galactic center, star forming regions and virtually any astrophysical object. This paper summarizes the entire design and basic capabilities. Among the design innovations is the combination of lenslet and slicer integral field units, new 4Kx4k detectors, extremely precise atmospheric dispersion correction, infrared wavefront sensors, and a very large vacuum cryogenic system.
The InfraRed Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) is a first-light instrument being designed for the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). IRIS is a combination of an imager that will cover a 16.4 field of view at the diffraction limit of TMT (4 mas sampling), and an integral field unit spectrograph that will sample objects at 4-50 mas scales. IRIS will open up new areas of observational parameter space, allowing major progress in diverse fields of astronomy. We present the science case and resulting requirements for the performance of IRIS. Ultimately, the spectrograph will enable very well-resolved and sensitive studies of the kinematics and internal chemical abundances of high-redshift galaxies, shedding light on many scenarios for the evolution of galaxies at early times. With unprecedented imaging and spectroscopy of exoplanets, IRIS will allow detailed exploration of a range of planetary systems that are inaccessible with current technology. By revealing details about resolved stellar populations in nearby galaxies, it will directly probe the formation of systems like our own Milky Way. Because it will be possible to directly characterize the stellar initial mass function in many environments and in galaxies outside of the the Milky Way, IRIS will enable a greater understanding of whether stars form differently in diverse conditions. IRIS will reveal detailed kinematics in the centers of low-mass galaxies, allowing a test of black hole formation scenarios. Finally, it will revolutionize the characterization of reionization and the first galaxies to form in the universe.
IRIS (InfraRed Imaging Spectrograph) is the diffraction-limited first light instrument for the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) that consists of a near-infrared (0.84 to 2.4 $mu$m) imager and integral field spectrograph (IFS). The IFS makes use of a lenslet array and slicer for spatial sampling, which will be able to operate in 100s of different modes, including a combination of four plate scales from 4 milliarcseconds (mas) to 50 mas with a large range of filters and gratings. The imager will have a field of view of 34$times$34 arcsec$^{2}$ with a plate scale of 4 mas with many selectable filters. We present the preliminary design of the data reduction system (DRS) for IRIS that need to address all of these observing modes. Reduction of IRIS data will have unique challenges since it will provide real-time reduction and analysis of the imaging and spectroscopic data during observational sequences, as well as advanced post-processing algorithms. The DRS will support three basic modes of operation of IRIS; reducing data from the imager, the lenslet IFS, and slicer IFS. The DRS will be written in Python, making use of open-source astronomical packages available. In addition to real-time data reduction, the DRS will utilize real-time visualization tools, providing astronomers with up-to-date evaluation of the target acquisition and data quality. The quicklook suite will include visualization tools for 1D, 2D, and 3D raw and reduced images. We discuss the overall requirements of the DRS and visualization tools, as well as necessary calibration data to achieve optimal data quality in order to exploit science cases across all cosmic distance scales.
The InfraRed Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) is the first-light client instrument for the Narrow Field Infrared Adaptive Optics System (NFIRAOS) on the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). Now approaching the end of its final design phase, we provide an overview of the instrument control software. The design is challenging since IRIS has interfaces with many systems at different stages of development (e.g., NFIRAOS, telescope control system, observatory sequencers), and will be built using the newly-developed TMT Common Software (CSW), which provides framework code (Java/Scala), and services (e.g., commands, telemetry). Lower-level software will be written in a combination of Java and C/C++ to communicate with hardware, such as motion controllers and infrared detectors. The overall architecture and philosophy of the IRIS software is presented, as well as a summary of the individual software components and their interactions with other systems.