HARP: a submillimetre heterodyne array receiver operating on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope

摘要

This paper describes the key design features and performance of HARP, an innovative heterodyne focal-plane arrayreceiver designed and built to operate in the submillimetre on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) in Hawaii.The 4x4 element array uses SIS detectors, and is the first sub-millimetre spectral imaging system on the JCMT. HARPprovides 3-dimensional imaging capability with high sensitivity at 325-375 GHz and affords significantly improvedproductivity in terms of speed of mapping. HARP was designed and built as a collaborative project between theCavendish Astrophysics Group in Cambridge UK, the UK-Astronomy Technology Centre in Edinburgh UK, theHerzberg Institute of Astrophysics in Canada and the Joint Astronomy Centre in Hawaii. SIS devices for the mixers werefabricated to a Cavendish Astrophysics Group design at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. Workingin conjunction with the new Auto Correlation Spectral Imaging System (ACSIS), first light with HARP was achieved inDecember 2005. HARP synthesizes a number of interesting features across all elements of the design; we present keyperformance characteristics and images of astronomical observations obtained during commissioning.