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J.G. Staguhn, D.J. Benford, C.A. Allen, S.H Moseley, T. Ames (NASA/GSFC), W. Brunswig (IRAM), D.T. Chuss, S. Maher, C. Marx, T.M. Miller (NASA/GSFC), S. Navarro (IRAM), E. Sharp, E.J. Wollack (NASA/GSFC)
We are building a bolometer camera for operation in the 2 mm atmospheric window to be used at the IRAM 30 m telescope. The major scientific driver for this instrument is to provide the IRAM 30 m telescope with the capability to rapidly observe galactic and extragalactic dust emission, in particular from high-z ULIRGs and quasars even in the summer season. The 2 mm spectral range provides a unique window to observe the earliest active dusty galaxies in the universe and is well suited to better confine the star formation in these objects. The instrument will fill in the SEDs of high redshift galaxies at the Rayleigh-Jeans part of the dust emission spectrum, even at the highest redshifts. The observational efficiency of a 2 mm camera with respect to bolometer cameras operating at shorter wavelength increases for objects at redshifts beyond z=1.
The instrument uses an 8x16 planar array of multiplexed TES bolometers which incorporates our newly designed \bf{Backshort Under Grid} (BUG) architecture. SQUID multiplexers built at NIST/Boulder are used for the detector readout. Due to the size and sensitivity of the detector array (the NEP of the detectors is 3x10-17 W Hz), this instrument will be unique in that it will be capable of providing significantly greater imaging sensitivity and mapping speed at this wavelength than has previously been possible. The instrument will perform at close to the sky background limit under the best weather conditions at the Pico Veleta site of the IRAM 30 m telescope in Spain. In order to optimize the efficiency of the instrument for survey observations, without compromising the achievable point source signal-to-noise, the close-packed detector array will sample the focal plane with D pixel spacing. Dithering will be used to recover the full angular resolution provided by the telescope. The instrument uses 4He and 3He evaporative coolers to provide a 0.275 K base temperature to cool the bolometer array. The BUG array design allows a flexible choice of backshort-absorber distance. Therefore this prototype array can be considered a pathfinder not only for a 2 mm-optimized array, but for a broad range of wavelengths.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: staguhn@milkyway.gsfc.nasa.gov
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 37 #4
© 2005. The American Astronomical Soceity.