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Published September 12, 2012 | Published
Book Section - Chapter Open

Aperture Mask Interferometry with an Integral Field Spectrograph

Abstract

A non-redundant pupil mask placed in front of a low-resolution integral field spectrograph (IFS) adds a spectral dimension to high angular resolution imaging behind adaptive optics systems. We demonstrate the first application of this technique, using the spectroscopic binary star system β CrB as our target. The mask and IFS combination enabled us to measure the first low-resolution spectrum of the F3-F5 dwarf secondary component of β CrB, at an angular separation 141 mas from its A5-A7Vp primary star. To record multi-wavelength closure phases, we collected interferograms simultaneously in 23 spectral channels spanning the J and H bands (1.1 μm-1.8 μm), using the Project 1640 IFS behind the 249-channel PalAO adaptive optics system on the Hale telescope at Palomar Observatory. In addition to providing physical information about the source, spectrally resolved mask fringes have the potential to enhance detection limits over single filter observations. While the overall dynamic range of our observation suffers from large systematic calibration errors, the information gleaned from the full channel range improves the dynamic range by a factor of 3 to 4 over the best single channel.

Additional Information

© 2012 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). We thank Lewis C. Roberts, Jr. for his assistance in computing the ephemeris of β CrB. We are grateful for support from the National Science Foundation, which enabled us to carry out this experiment through grant AST-0804417. Further support was provided by NASA grant 08-APRA08-0117, and the STScI Director's Discretionary Research Fund. Part of this work was performed under a contract with the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) funded by NASA through the Sagan Fellowship Program. In addition, this work has been partially supported by the National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center for Adaptive Optics, managed by the University of California at Santa Cruz under cooperative agreement AST 98-76783. The Project 1640 team is grateful for support from the Cordelia Corporation, Hilary and Ethel Lipsitz, the Vincent Astor Fund, Judy Vale, and the Plymouth Hill Foundation.

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