NOAO Major Instrumentation Program: Long Range

Planning

NOAO Users’ Committee

David Sprayberry

October 6, 2006

Outline

• Quick review of current projects

• Motivations

• NOAO Scientific Staff process

• Ideas generated

• “The Way Forward” ...

NEWFIRM• Optical Tests → great results!

– Tribute to entire team: – Design, Fabrication, Assembly

and Test all successful.

• Next Cold Cycle this month• Vendors ...• First light: Jan• SV Planning

MONSOON• Backlog cleared• QUOTA working• DECam Review positive• ODI Selection• Development work

continuing– ODI– Torrent

• New interest cropping up all over...

SAM: SOAR Adaptive Optics Module

• PDR passed in Dec• “Mini-reviews” since:

– WFS optics– Module/structure

• Parts in fab, science channel optics well along

• Science channel/NGS delivery late 2007

• LGS delivery late 2008

MIP LRP: Motivations

• Finishing NEWFIRM

• Last report of this Committee

• NSF Senior Review

• MIP Activities Next ~2-3 years:– ODI in North, SAM in South, MONSOON both– Begin fleshing out 1 or 2 concepts for new

instruments– Could push development further if partners appear

Scientific Staff Input

• IPAC meetings over last 12 months– Including presentations of ideas

• All-staff meeting September 12– Reviewed likely context– Summarized ideas– Much useful feedback

• Context...

Ground capabilities: 8-12 m• Strong emphasis on high spatial resolution

– Complex AO systems, arcmin to arcsec FOV• Highly multiplexed spectroscopy

– Keck DEIMOS, MOSFIRE (2010)– HET VIRUS (2009)– VLT VIMOS, KMOS (2011), HAWK-I (2007?), X-

Shooter (date?)– Gemini FLAMINGOS-2 (2007), WFMOS (?)– LBT Lucifer (2007, 2008)

• Widefield optical imaging– Magellan IMACS – Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam

Ground: 4-m, NOAO / AURA• Emphasis on improved spatial resolution

– WIYN TTM, SOAR SAM --> instrument feeds

• Building on widefield optical imaging strength– ODI (2009)– DEC (2009)

• Adding time domain– LSST (2013)

• Extending frequency domain– ALMA rampup 2007-2011, full ops 2012– FOV ~10-60” at 0.005-0.25 “/pixel

Space capabilities 2011• Hubble: retired 2010

– Huge archive, diffr limited optical images

• Spitzer: out of gas 2009, out of cash 2011

– Huge archive, mid/far IR, ~1-10”/pix images, low res

spectra

• Herschel: just finished FIR mission

• Planck: finished COBE followup mission

• GALEX, Chandra, XMM: missions ended 2007-2010

• GAIA: just launched, 5 yr MW astrometry mission

• SOFIA: 2 yrs full ops, mid/far IR

• JWST: two years from launch…standing by…

Survey Landscape in 2010

Ground-based surveys:• SDSS all done (?)• NEWFIRM/WFCAM/WIRCAM, PANSTARRS/VISTA operating• WFMOS/HSC under construction?• LSST under construction

Space-based surveys:

• WISE in orbit? (2008?) 3.5-23m• Herschel in orbit? (2007?) 57-670m• GLAST in orbit? (2007?) GRB• Other stuff more uncertain

Science follow-up of imaging survey products:

1) Wide-field spectroscopic surveys 2) Rare-object spectroscopy 3) Variable objects

Arjun Dey

The Yin and Yang of 4 meter instruments

Instruments offering an order of magnitude gain rank well.

Expensive instruments have enormous inertia.

New technologies spawn new instruments.

New technologies increase risk.

Niche instruments may have “killer app” but still attract limited support.

General purpose capabilities attract universal support but lack “killer app”.

No guaranteed funds for new instruments in a flat budget.

Good ideas attract funding.

SOIREE: Single Object O/IR Extremely Efficient spectrograph

• 0.35 < λ < 1.6 μm– K more costly but possible– Cool how much for λ range?

• R ~ 3000• Throughput > 30%• Rapid faint-object acquisition

(slit-viewing guider? New TCS?)

• Use O & IR modes together or separately; 3+ channels

• Slit length ~ 1’– ADC? Need trade study– N&S? ‘scope or internal?

Efficiency gains from:•VPH gratings•Modern dichroics•Optimized coatings, detectors

Possible science applications:

• Redshifts of bright, rare/variable targets where wide wavelength coverage is necessary (GRBs, high-z QSOs, SNe)

• Reverberation mapping of QSOs (monitoring of continuum and broad lines - can use same line over broad z range)

• Redshifts of objects with breaks near 1m (z~1.5 luminous galaxies, z~7-8 bright QSOs)

• Temporal monitoring of OIR spectra of core-collapse Sne (large coverage => better theoretical constraints)

• Multi-wavelength monitoring of variable sources (CVs, weird stars, new - LSST - classes of variables)

• Searches for very cool (L,T,Y) brown dwarfs

• Multiwavelength spectral atlas of Galactic stars (WISE/Herschel/JWST)

• Low-res Spectral Atlas of nearby (SDSS) galaxies for population synthesis

Arjun Dey

4CES: 4-meter Cryogenic Echelle Spectrograph

• 1 < λ < 5 μm• R ~ 50,000• Slit 0.8” x 15”• High Throughput

– Si immersion grating– Single 2k x 2k array

• IR slit-viewer for acquisition & guiding

• Minimize modes, parts = minimize cost

Schematic of an accretion disk around a T Tauri pre-main sequence object

High Spectral Resolution Science

• Origin of elements of life• Physics of star formation regions• Accretion disks • Chemistry of the ISM, especially H3

+

• Masses for very low mass stars• Astrochemistry of elementary life molecules, C2H2,

HCN, …• Flows in circumstellar envelopes• Unique ISM, PN diagnostics: H2, forbidden lines,… • Magnetic fields, rotation, Doppler imaging,…

“Niche” Instrument Ideas

Name λ (μm) Nature FOV Scale, R Scope

Speckle 0.5-1 HR Imager

5” 0.015”, 10 SOAR

STUFFIS 0.4-0.9 FP Imager

5’ 0.5”, ~1000

SOAR

3CPO 2-5 BB Imager

10’ 0.3”, 10 Mayall,Blanco?

OVNI2 1-2.5 NB Imager

17’x2 0.5”, 150 Mayall, Blanco?

A Few Observations

• Not all these ideas are mutually exclusive:– Ex: Speckle and/or STUFFIS are cheap enough

that they could easily be done with another– Ex: 3CPO and/or OVNI should be quicker, could be

phased around/ahead of a larger project

• Only Speckle & STUFFIS are scope-specific– Others could in principle go anywhere

• None of these are wide FOV:– Cost driver– Covered with ODI, DEC, NEWFIRM, Hydra

Costs, Generally

• Costs not well-known for most– Plan to do concept studies of 1 or 2 in FY07

• NOAO/MIP not expected to have sufficient resources to build a new instrument alone– Except for Speckle or STUFFIS

• Partnership(s) with other institution(s) will be absolutely necessary

• Partner interests will strongly affect choice of project

Partnership Models

• OSIRIS, FLAMINGOS: University builds instrument & turns it over to NOAO

• DECam: Partner consortium designs & builds instrument, NOAO contributes some tech support and telescope improvements

• HRNIRS: NOAO and UF shared labor and capital ~equally

• NEWFIRM: NOAO provides most of the resources, U Md contributes minority shares

What We Need From YOU

• Feedback on these instrument concepts– Scientific impact– Utility to community

• Suggestions of other concepts

• Help lining up partners with resources!