Computer Science – Performance
Scientific paper
Dec 1999
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1999aas...195.7304b&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, 195th AAS Meeting, #73.04; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 31, p.1477
Computer Science
Performance
1
Scientific paper
We present the results of the first two observing runs with our new submillimeter spectrometer, the South Pole Imaging Fabry-Perot Interferometer (SPIFI). SPIFI is the first of its kind -- a direct-detection imaging spectrometer for use in the submillimeter. Our first two runs were through the 350 μm telluric window on the 15 m James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT), but SPIFI can also access the 200, 450, and 600 μm windows available to the JCMT and the AST/RO telescope at the South Pole. Despite mediocre weather on our first two runs (atmospheric transmission < 10%), we mapped the entire Galactic Center circumnuclear ring (CNR) in CO (J=7-6) at 7 arcsec resolution (about 200 spectra). The high-J CO emission traces warm, dense molecular gas, and especially highlights shocks. We observe bright emission in both the CNR itself and in kinematically distinct infalling material such as the +70 km/s cloud and the northern arm. We also carried out the first extragalactic CO (7-6) obsevations, in the starburst galaxies NGC 253 and M82. The line intensities indicate that these starburst systems, especially NGC 253, are exciting large amounts of dense molecular gas to T 100 K. SPIFI's sensitivity at the telescope was very close to predicted. We measured system temperatures around 10,000 K with an atmospheric transmission of 8.5 %, which, accounting for the efficiencies, is equivalent to Trec (DSB) < 100 K. We intend to continue to improve SPIFI's performance, and good-weather projects in the near future include [CI] 370 μm mapping in the Galactic Center, starburst galaxies, dwarf galaxies, and ULIGs, as well as the first observations of far-IR fine structure lines in high-redshift systems.
Bolatto Alberto D.
Bradford Charles Mathias
Davidson Jacqueline A.
Jackson James M.
Nikola Thomas
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