The Multi-object, Fiber-fed Spectrographs for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey
- Creators
- Smee, Stephen A.
- Merrelli, Aronne James
Abstract
We present the design and performance of the multi-object fiber spectrographs for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and their upgrade for the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). Originally commissioned in Fall 1999 on the 2.5 m aperture Sloan Telescope at Apache Point Observatory, the spectrographs produced more than 1.5 million spectra for the SDSS and SDSS-II surveys, enabling a wide variety of Galactic and extra-galactic science including the first observation of baryon acoustic oscillations in 2005. The spectrographs were upgraded in 2009 and are currently in use for BOSS, the flagship survey of the third-generation SDSS-III project. BOSS will measure redshifts of 1.35 million massive galaxies to redshift 0.7 and Lyα absorption of 160,000 high redshift quasars over 10,000 deg^2 of sky, making percent level measurements of the absolute cosmic distance scale of the universe and placing tight constraints on the equation of state of dark energy. The twin multi-object fiber spectrographs utilize a simple optical layout with reflective collimators, gratings, all-refractive cameras, and state-of-the-art CCD detectors to produce hundreds of spectra simultaneously in two channels over a bandpass covering the near-ultraviolet to the near-infrared, with a resolving power R = λ/FWHM ~ 2000. Building on proven heritage, the spectrographs were upgraded for BOSS with volume-phase holographic gratings and modern CCD detectors, improving the peak throughput by nearly a factor of two, extending the bandpass to cover 360 nm < λ < 1000 nm, and increasing the number of fibers from 640 to 1000 per exposure. In this paper we describe the original SDSS spectrograph design and the upgrades implemented for BOSS, and document the predicted and measured performances.
Additional Information
© 2013 The American Astronomical Society. Received 2012 August 10; accepted 2013 May 15; published 2013 July 12. Funding for SDSS-III has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Participating Institutions, the National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science. The SDSS-III Web site is http://www.sdss3.org/. SDSS-III is managed by the Astrophysical Research Consortium for the Participating Institutions of the SDSS-III Collaboration including the University of Arizona, the Brazilian Participation Group, Brookhaven National Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Florida, the French Participation Group, the German Participation Group, Harvard University, the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, the Michigan State/Notre Dame/JINA Participation Group, Johns Hopkins University, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, New Mexico State University, New York University, Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, University of Portsmouth, Princeton University, the Spanish Participation Group, University of Tokyo, University of Utah, Vanderbilt University, University of Virginia, University of Washington, and Yale University.Attached Files
Published - 1538-3881_146_2_32.pdf
Submitted - 1208.2233v2.pdf
Files
| Name | Size | Download all |
|---|---|---|
|
md5:77f01a10a38c8a15277d4d14e1ec553b
|
17.4 MB | Preview Download |
|
md5:3f64824d9350345a6a34868a5c2713b9
|
28.8 MB | Preview Download |
Additional details
- Alternative title
- The Multi-Object, Fiber-Fed Spectrographs for SDSS and the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey
- Eprint ID
- 41163
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20130909-093549226
- Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
- Participating Institutions
- NSF
- Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science
- Created
-
2013-09-17Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
-
2021-11-10Created from EPrint's last_modified field