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A. Poglitsch (Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik), C. Waelkens (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven), O.H. Bauer (Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik), J. Cepa (Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias), T. Henning (Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie), C. van Hoof (Interuniversity Microelectronics Center), R. Katterloher (Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik), F. Kerschbaum (Institut für Astronomie der Universität Wien), D. Lemke (Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie), E. Renotte (Centre Spatial de Liege), L.. Rodriguez (Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique), P. Royer (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven), P. Saraceno (Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario)
The Photodetector Array Camera and Spectrometer (PACS) is one of the three science instruments for ESA's far infrared and submillimetre observatory Herschel. It employs two Ge:Ga photoconductor arrays (stressed and unstressed) with 16 \times 25 pixels, each, and two filled Si bolometer arrays with 16 \times 32 and 32 \times 64 pixels, respectively, to perform imaging line spectroscopy and imaging photometry in the 60-210 \mum wavelength band.
In photometry mode, it will simultaneously image two bands, 60-85 or 85-130\mum and 130-210\mum, over a field of view of /sim 1.75'\times 3.5', with full beam sampling in each band. In spectroscopy mode, it will image a field of ~50''\times 50'', resolved into 5 \times 5 pixels, with an instantaneous spectral coverage of ~1500km/s and a spectral resolution of ~175km/s. In both modes background-noise limited peformance is expected, with sensitivities (5 \sigma in 1h) of {\rm 3-10\times 10-18 W/m2}, respectively.
We describe the design of the instrument and its observing modes, report first results from instrument level tests of the Qualification Model, and give examples of the observing capabilities of PACS onboard Herschel for several key questions of modern astronomy, illustrated by examples from the emerging Guaranteed Time Programmme of the PACS consortium.
This work is supported by the following funding agencies: ASI (Italy), BMVIT (Austria), CEA/CNES (France), DLR (Germany), ESA-PRODEX (Begium), and CDTI (Spain).
If you would like more information about this abstract, please follow the link to http://pacs.ster.kuleuven.ac.be/. This link was provided by the author. When you follow it, you will leave the Web site for this meeting; to return, you should use the Back comand on your browser.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: pacs@mpe.mpg.de
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 36 #2
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