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J. Staguhn (NASA/GSFC, Raytheon ITSS), D.J. Benford (NASA/GSFC, Raytheon ITSS), S.A. Khan (Imperial, NASA/GSFC), B. Maffei (QMWC), S.H. Moseley (NASA/GSFC), F. Pajot (IAS), T.G. Phillips (Caltech), C. Rioux (IAS), R.A. Shafer (NASA/GSFC)
FIBRE is a submillimeter spectrometer based on a helium-cooled scanning Fabry-Perot and superconducting transition edge sensor bolometers (TES). A SQUID multiplexer is used to
read out the individual detector pixels. The Fabry-Perot uses a low resolution grating to order sort the incoming light. A linear bolometer array consisting of 16 elements detects this dispersed light, capturing 5 orders simultaneously from one position on the sky. With tuning of the Fabry-Perot over one free spectral range, a spectrum covering \Delta\lambda/\lambda=1/7 at a resolution of \delta\lambda/\lambda~/1500 can be acquired. This spectral resolution is sufficient to resolve doppler broadened line emission from
external galaxies. FIBRE operates in the 350\mum and 450\mum bands. These bands cover line emission from the important PDR tracers neutral carbon [CI] and carbon monoxide CO. The large bandwidth of FIBRE will allow to measure the spectral index of underlying sub-mm continuum emission. The spectrometer will be used at the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory in 2001.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: staguhn@stars.gsfc.nasa.gov