SPIFI: The South Pole Imaging Fabry-Perot Interferometer

The South Pole Imaging Fabry-Perot Interferometer (SPIFI) is a direct detection imaging spectrometer designed for use in the far-IR and submm (200, 350, 450 micron) windows available to the 1.7 m Antarctic Submillimeter Telescope and Remote Observatory (AST/RO) at the South Pole, and in the submm (350 and 450 micron) windows available to the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. SPIFI's detector is a 5 x 5 element array of monolithic silicon bolometers cooled to 60 mK in an adiabatic demagnetization refrigerator. SPIFI uses free standing metal mesh Fabry-Perot interferometers to deliver spectroscopic images at resolving powers as large as R = 10,000 (or a velocity resolution, as small Dv = 30 km/s) over the entire array.

People

Link to old SPIFI Website

Selected Publications:

• Oberst, T.E., Parshley, S.C., Stacey, G.J., Nikola, T., Loehr, A., Harnett, J.I., Tothill, N.F.H., Lane, A.P., Stark, A.A., Tucker, C.E., "Detection of the 205 micron [N II] Line from the Carina Nebula", 2006, ApJ, 652L, 125
• Bradford, C.M., Stacey, G.J., Nikola, T., Bolatto, A.D., Jackson, J.M., Savage, M.L., and Davidson, J.A., "High Resolution Imaging of CO (J=7->6) in the Central 2pc of the Galaxy: Dynamical Heating of the Circumnuclear Disk", 2005, ApJ., 623, 866
• Bradford, C. M., Nikola, T., Stacey, G. J., Bolatto, A. D., Jackson, J. M., Savage, M. L., Davidson, J. A., Higdon, S. J., "CO (J=7->6) Observations of NGC 253: Cosmic-Ray-heated Warm Molecular Gas", 2003, ApJ, 586, 891
• Bradford, C. M., Stacey, G.J., Swain, M.R., Nikola, T., Bolatto, A.D., Jackson, J.M., Savage, M.L., Davidson, J.A., Ade, P.A.R., "SPIFI: A Direct-detection Imaging Spectrometer for Submillimeter Wavelengths", 2002, ApOpt, 41, 2561
• Swain, M.R., Bradford, C.M., Stacey, G.J., Bolatto, A.D., Jackson, J.M., Savage, M.L., Davidson, J.A., "Design of the South Pole Imaging Fabry-Perot interferometer (SPIFI)", 1998, SPIE, 3354, 480

Pictures from the South Pole Trip 2003/04