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The Sydney-AAO Multi-object Integral field spectrograph (SAMI)

Authors :
Croom, Scott M.
Lawrence, Jon S.
Bland-Hawthorn, Joss
Bryant, Julia J.
Fogarty, Lisa
Richards, Samuel
Goodwin, Michael
Farrell, Tony
Miziarski, Stan
Heald, Ron
Jones, D. Heath
Lee, Steve
Colless, Matthew
Brough, Sarah
Hopkins, Andrew M.
Bauer, Amanda E.
Birchall, Michael N.
Ellis, Simon
Horton, Anthony
Leon-Saval, Sergio
Lewis, Geraint
Lopez-Sanchez, A. R.
Min, Seong-Sik
Trinh, Christopher
Trowland, Holly
Publication Year :
2011

Abstract

We demonstrate a novel technology that combines the power of the multi-object spectrograph with the spatial multiplex advantage of an integral field spectrograph (IFS). The Sydney-AAO Multi-object IFS (SAMI) is a prototype wide-field system at the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) that allows 13 imaging fibre bundles ("hexabundles") to be deployed over a 1-degree diameter field of view. Each hexabundle comprises 61 lightly-fused multimode fibres with reduced cladding and yields a 75 percent filling factor. Each fibre core diameter subtends 1.6 arcseconds on the sky and each hexabundle has a field of view of 15 arcseconds diameter. The fibres are fed to the flexible AAOmega double-beam spectrograph, which can be used at a range of spectral resolutions (R=lambda/delta(lambda) ~ 1700-13000) over the optical spectrum (3700-9500A). We present the first spectroscopic results obtained with SAMI for a sample of galaxies at z~0.05. We discuss the prospects of implementing hexabundles at a much higher multiplex over wider fields of view in order to carry out spatially--resolved spectroscopic surveys of 10^4 to 10^5 galaxies.<br />Comment: 24 pages, 16 figures. Accepted by MNRAS

Details

Database :
arXiv
Publication Type :
Report
Accession number :
edsarx.1112.3367
Document Type :
Working Paper
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2011.20365.x