The Infrared Camera (IRC) for AKARI - Design and Imaging Performance

摘要

The Infrared Camera (IRC) is one of two focal-plane instruments on the AKARIsatellite. It is designed for wide-field deep imaging and low-resolutionspectroscopy in the near- to mid-infrared (1.8--26.5um) in the pointedobservation mode of AKARI. IRC is also operated in the survey mode to make anall-sky survey at 9 and 18um. It comprises three channels. The NIR channel(1.8--5.5um) employs a 512 x 412 InSb array, whereas both the MIR-S(4.6--13.4um) and MIR-L (12.6--26.5um) channels use 256 x 256 Si:As impurityband conduction arrays. Each of the three channels has a field-of-view of about10' x 10' and are operated simultaneously. The NIR and MIR-S share the samefield-of-view by virtue of a beam splitter. The MIR-L observes the sky about$25' away from the NIR/MIR-S field-of-view. IRC gives us deep insights into theformation and evolution of galaxies, the evolution of planetary disks, theprocess of star-formation, the properties of interstellar matter under variousphysical conditions, and the nature and evolution of solar system objects. Thein-flight performance of IRC has been confirmed to be in agreement with thepre-flight expectation. This paper summarizes the design and the in-flightoperation and imaging performance of IRC.