The Development of Replicated Optical Integral Field Spectrographs and their Application to the Study of Lyman-alpha Emission at Moderate Redshifts.

摘要

In the upcoming era of extremely large ground-based astronomical telescopes, the design of wide-field spectroscopic survey instrumentation has become increasingly complex due to the linear growth of instrument pupil size with telescope diameter for a constant spectral resolving power. The upcoming Visible Integral field Replicable Unit Spectrograph (VIRUS), a baseline array of 150 copies of a simple integral field spectrograph that will be fed by 3:36 x 104 optical fibers on the upgraded Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) at McDonald Observatory, represents one of the first uses of large-scale replication to break the relationship between instrument pupil size and telescope diameter. By dividing the telescope's field of view between a large number of smaller and more manageable instruments, the total information grasp of a traditional monolithic survey spectrograph can be achieved at a fraction of the cost and engineering complexity. To highlight the power of this method, VIRUS will execute the HET Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX) and survey & 420 degrees2 of sky to an emission line flux limit of ∼ 10-17 erg s-1 cm -2 to detect ∼ 106 Lyman-alpha emitting galaxies (LAEs) as probes of large-scale structure at redshifts of 1:9 < z < 3:5. HETDEX will precisely measure the evolution of dark energy at that epoch, and will simultaneously amass an LAE sample that will be unprecedented for extragalactic astrophysics at the redshifts of interest.;Large-scale replication has clear advantages to increasing the total information grasp of a spectrograph, but there are also challenges. In this dissertation, two of these challenges with respect to VIRUS are detailed. First, the VIRUS cryogenic system is discussed, specifically the design and tests of a novel thermal connector and internal camera croygenic components that link the 150 charge-coupled device detectors to the instrument's liquid nitrogen distribution system. Second, the design, testing, and mass production of the suite of volume phase holographic (VPH) diffraction gratings for VIRUS is presented, which highlights the challenge and success associated with producing of a very large number of highly customized optical elements whose performance is crucial to meeting the efficiency requirements of the spectrograph system.;To accommodate VIRUS, the HET is undergoing a substantial wide-field upgrade to increase its field of view to 22' in diameter. The previous HET facility Low Resolution Spectrograph (LRS), which was directly fed by the telescope's previous spherical aberration corrector, must be removed from the prime focus instrument package as a result of the telescope upgrades and instead be fiber-coupled to the telescope focal plane. For a similar cost as modifying LRS to accommodate these changes, a new second generation instrument (LRS2) will be based on the VIRUS unit spectrograph. The design, operational concept, construction, and laboratory testing and characterization of LRS2 is the primary focus of this dissertation, which highlights the benefits of leveraging the large engineering investment, economies of scale, and laboratory and observatory infrastructure associated with the massively replicated VIRUS instrument. LRS2 will provide integral field spectroscopy for a seeing-limited field of 12" x 6". The multiplexed VIRUS framework facilitates broad wavelength coverage from 370 nm to 1.0 mum spread between two dual-channel spectrographs at a moderate spectral resolving power of R ≈ 2000. The design departures from VIRUS are presented, including the novel integral field unit, VPH grism dispersers, and various optical changes for accommodating the broadband wavelength coverage. Laboratory testing has verified that LRS2 largely meets its image quality specification and is nearly ready for delivery to the HET where its final verification and validation tasks will be executed. LRS2 will enable the continuation of most legacy LRS science programs and provide improved capability for future investigations. (Abstract shortened by ProQuest.).