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This White Paper presents the scientific motivations for a multi-object spectrograph (MOS) on the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT). The MOS case draws on all fields of contemporary astronomy, from extra-solar planets, to the study of the ha lo of the Milky Way and its satellites, and from resolved stellar populations in nearby galaxies out to observations of the earliest first-light structures in the partially-reionised Universe. The material presented here results from thorough discussions within the community over the past four years, building on the past competitive studies to agree a common strategy toward realising a MOS capability on the E-ELT. The cases have been distilled to a set of common requirements which will be used to define the MOSAIC instrument, entailing two observational modes (high multiplex and high definition). When combined with the unprecedented sensitivity of the E-ELT, MOSAIC will be the worlds leading MOS facility. In analysing the requirements we also identify a high-multiplex MOS for the longer-term plans for the E-ELT, with an even greater multiplex (>1000 targets) to enable studies of large-scale structures in the high-redshift Universe. Following the green light for the construction of the E-ELT the MOS community, structured through the MOSAIC consortium, is eager to realise a MOS on the E-ELT as soon as possible. We argue that several of the most compelling cases for ELT science, in highly competitive areas of modern astronomy, demand such a capability. For example, MOS observations in the early stages of E-ELT operations will be essential for follow-up of sources identified by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). In particular, multi-object adaptive optics and accurate sky subtraction with fibres have both recently been demonstrated on sky, making fast-track development of MOSAIC feasible.
A multi-object spectrograph on the forthcoming European Extremely Large Telescope will be required to operate with good sky coverage. Many of the interesting deep cosmological fields were deliberately chosen to be free of bright foreground stars, and therefore are potentially challenging for adaptive optics (AO) systems. Here we investigate multi-object AO performance using sub-fields chosen at random from within the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS)-S field, which is the worst case scenario for five deep fields used extensively in studies of high-redshift galaxies. Our AO system model is based on that of the proposed MOSAIC instrument but our findings are equally applicable to plans for multi-object spectroscopy on any of the planned Extremely Large Telescopes. Potential guide stars within these sub-fields are identified and used for simulations of AO correction. We achieve ensquared energies within 75~mas of between 25-35% depending on the sub-field, which is sufficient to probe sub-kpc scales in high-redshift galaxies. We also investigate the effect of detector readout noise on AO system performance, and consider cases where natural guide stars are used for both high-order and tip-tilt-only AO correction. We also consider how performance scales with ensquared energy box size. In summary, the expected AO performance is sufficient for a MOSAIC-like instrument, even within deep fields characterised by a lack of bright foreground stars.
Fibre-fed spectrographs now have throughputs equivalent to slit spectrographs. However, the sky subtraction accuracy that can be reached has often been pinpointed as one of the major issues associated with the use of fibres. Using technical time obse rvations with FLAMES-GIRAFFE, two observing techniques, namely dual staring and cross beam-switching, were tested and the resulting sky subtraction accuracy reached in both cases was quantified. Results indicate that an accuracy of 0.6% on sky subtraction can be reached, provided that the cross beam-switching mode is used. This is very encouraging with regard to the detection of very faint sources with future fibre-fed spectrographs, such as VLT/MOONS or E-ELT/MOSAIC.
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