CHESS: An innovative concept for high-resolution, far-UV spectroscopy
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CHESS: An innovative concept for high-resolution, far-UV spectroscopy Instrument design, inception, and results from the first two sounding rocket flights Keri Hoadley1,2 · Kevin France3 · Nicholas Nell3 · Robert Kane4 · Brian Fleming3 · Allison Youngblood3 · Matthew Beasley5 Received: 1 September 2018 / Accepted: 3 August 2020 / Published online: 1 October 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract The space ultraviolet (UV) is a critical astronomical observing window, where a multitude of atomic, ionic, and molecular signatures provide crucial insight into planetary, interstellar, stellar, intergalactic, and extragalactic objects. The next generation of large space telescopes require highly sensitive, moderate-to-high resolution UV spectrograph. However, sensitive observations in the UV are difficult, as UV optical performance and imaging efficiencies have lagged behind counterparts in the visible and infrared regimes. This has historically resulted in simple, low-bounce instruments to increase sensitivity. In this study, we present the design, fabrication, and calibration of a simple, high resolution, high throughput FUV spectrograph the Colorado High-resolution Echelle Stellar Spectrograph (CHESS). CHESS is a sounding rocket payload to demonstrate the instrument design for the next-generation UV space telescopes. We present tests and results on the performance of several state-of-the-art diffraction grating and detector technologies for FUV astronomical applications that were flown aboard the first two iterations of CHESS. The CHESS spectrograph was used to study the atomic-to-molecular transitions within translucent cloud regions in the interstellar medium (ISM) through absorption spectroscopy. The first two flights looked at the sightlines towards α Virgo and Persei and flight results are presented. Keywords Instrumentation: spectrographs - ISM: abundances · Clouds · Molecules - stars: individual ( Per (HD 24760))
Keri Hoadley
[email protected]
Extended author information available on the last page of the article.
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Experimental Astronomy (2020) 50:233–264
1 Introduction Ultraviolet (UV) observations are critical for addressing a many key questions in nearly all aspects of astrophysics. UV observations probe the flow of energetics in the universe as UV photons affect atoms, molecules, ions, and dust. The UV is the peak of the hot star spectral energy distribution (SED), making it the ideal probe of massive (recent) star-formation and galactic star formation histories (e.g., [51]). A multitude of atomic, ionic, and molecular species have strong resonances with UV radiation, which pump and produce strong emission and absorption lines seen against the UV background. The UV is home to emission lines in collisional ionization equilibrium at formation temperatures up to ∼ 3 × 105 K [71], critical for assessing hot interstellar, circumgalactic, and intergalactic environments. The only other wavelength regime with the potential to observe so many phases of gas and dust simultaneously is the far-IR, which
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