TY - GEN
T1 - Design drivers for a wide-field multi-object spectrograph for the William Herschel Telescope
AU - Balcells, Marc
AU - Benn, Chris R.
AU - Carter, David
AU - Dalton, Gavin B.
AU - Trager, Scott C.
AU - Feltzing, Sofia
AU - Verheijen, M.A.W.
AU - Jarvis, Matt
AU - Percival, Will
AU - Abrams, Don C.
AU - Agocs, Tibor
AU - Brown, Anthony G. A.
AU - Cano, Diego
AU - Evans, Chris
AU - Helmi, Amina
AU - Lewis, Ian J.
AU - McLure, Ross
AU - Peletier, Reynier F.
AU - Pérez-Fournon, Ismael
AU - Sharples, Ray M.
AU - Tosh, Ian A. J.
AU - Trujillo, Ignacio
AU - Walton, Nic
AU - Westhall, Kyle B.
N1 - M1 - Conference Proceedings
PY - 2010/7
Y1 - 2010/7
N2 - Wide-field multi-object spectroscopy is a high priority for European
astronomy over the next decade. Most 8-10m telescopes have a small field
of view, making 4-m class telescopes a particularly attractive option
for wide-field instruments. We present a science case and design drivers
for a wide-field multi-object spectrograph (MOS) with integral field
units for the 4.2-m William Herschel Telescope (WHT) on La Palma. The
instrument intends to take advantage of a future prime-focus corrector
and atmospheric-dispersion corrector (Agocs et al, this conf.) that will
deliver a field of view 2 deg in diameter, with good throughput from 370
to 1,000 nm. The science programs cluster into three groups needing
three different resolving powers R: (1) high-precision radial-velocities
for Gaia-related Milky Way dynamics, cosmological redshift surveys, and
galaxy evolution studies (R = 5,000), (2) galaxy disk velocity
dispersions (R = 10,000) and (3) high-precision stellar element
abundances for Milky Way archaeology (R = 20,000). The multiplex
requirements of the different science cases range from a few hundred to
a few thousand, and a range of fibre-positioner technologies are
considered. Several options for the spectrograph are discussed, building
in part on published design studies for E-ELT spectrographs. Indeed, a
WHT MOS will not only efficiently deliver data for exploitation of
important imaging surveys planned for the coming decade, but will also
serve as a test-bed to optimize the design of MOS instruments for the
future E-ELT.
AB - Wide-field multi-object spectroscopy is a high priority for European
astronomy over the next decade. Most 8-10m telescopes have a small field
of view, making 4-m class telescopes a particularly attractive option
for wide-field instruments. We present a science case and design drivers
for a wide-field multi-object spectrograph (MOS) with integral field
units for the 4.2-m William Herschel Telescope (WHT) on La Palma. The
instrument intends to take advantage of a future prime-focus corrector
and atmospheric-dispersion corrector (Agocs et al, this conf.) that will
deliver a field of view 2 deg in diameter, with good throughput from 370
to 1,000 nm. The science programs cluster into three groups needing
three different resolving powers R: (1) high-precision radial-velocities
for Gaia-related Milky Way dynamics, cosmological redshift surveys, and
galaxy evolution studies (R = 5,000), (2) galaxy disk velocity
dispersions (R = 10,000) and (3) high-precision stellar element
abundances for Milky Way archaeology (R = 20,000). The multiplex
requirements of the different science cases range from a few hundred to
a few thousand, and a range of fibre-positioner technologies are
considered. Several options for the spectrograph are discussed, building
in part on published design studies for E-ELT spectrographs. Indeed, a
WHT MOS will not only efficiently deliver data for exploitation of
important imaging surveys planned for the coming decade, but will also
serve as a test-bed to optimize the design of MOS instruments for the
future E-ELT.
U2 - 10.1117/12.856947
DO - 10.1117/12.856947
M3 - Conference contribution
VL - 7735
T3 - Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) Conference Series
SP - 242
BT - Proceedings of the SPIE
ER -