Speaker
Description
Spatially and spectrally resolved observations of the thermal and kinematic Sunyaev-Zel’dovich (SZ) effect towards galaxy clusters are crucial for understanding their formation and assembly history. Current instrumentation for direct observations of the SZ effect in the mm/submm rely either on coherent receivers or on imaging cameras. Coherent receivers can achieve a high spectral resolution, but have a limited field of view and spectral bandwidth. Cameras, on the other hand, offer a large field of view and spectral bandwidth, but lack the spectral resolution. This dichotomy manifests itself in a gap in parameter space between coherent receivers and cameras and highlights the need for a novel mm/submm spectral imager that combines the advantages of both concepts.
We present the Terahertz Integral Field Unit with Universal Nanotechnology (TIFUUN) instrument, a mm/submm on-chip integral field unit designed to fill the gap between coherent receivers and imaging cameras. The instrument uses a wideband lens-antenna array, a superconducting filterbank, and microwave kinetic inductance detectors (MKIDs), to spectrally image cosmological volumes with a large field of view of around 7.6 arcminutes, a spectral bandwidth spanning one to two octaves, and moderate spectral resolution from R=100 up to R=1000. The first prototype, which will be optimized for observing the spatially and spectrally resolved SZ effect, is currently being designed and developed for use at the ASTE telescope. Recently, we have successfully performed the commissioning and science verification campaign of the DESHIMA 2.0 instrument at ASTE, which is essentially a single-pixel TIFUUN. This further motivates TIFUUN as a valuable instrument for galaxy cluster science, and for mm/submm astronomy in general.
Crucial in the design procedure for TIFUUN is TiEMPO2, a software program for the simulation of realistic time-ordered data streams for TIFUUN observations at arbitrary telescopes. TiEMPO2 uses a dynamic model of the atmosphere to model the radiative transfer of an arbitrary astronomical source. Noise is calculated and added real-time using a realistic photon noise and two-level system noise model. The code can be used through a Python interface, and is powered by libraries written in C++ and CUDA. These simulations will be used to optimize the TIFUUN chip design for the SZ observations, but will also be used to test data reduction pipelines and noise reduction techniques.
| Would you be interested in presenting a poster if the conference is oversubcribed? | Yes |
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