SIFUS: SOAR integral field unit spectrograph

Abstract

We present the project of an optical spectrograph equipped with a 1300-element Integral Field Unit (IFU), that will be one of the main instruments of the SOAR (4m) telescope. The instrument consists of two separate parts, the fore-optics and the bench spectrograph, that are connected by an 11 m long fiber bundle. The fore optics system is installed at one of the Nasmyth focii of the telescope, and produces an image of the observed object on a 26x50 array of square microlenses, each 1 mm x 1 mm lens feeding one fiber. The fibers have 50 micron cores, and are aligned at the entrance of bench spectrograph to form a slit that feeds a 100 mm beam collimator. A set of Volume Phase-Holographic (VPH) transmission gratings can be interchanged by remote control, providing a choice of resolution and wavelength coverage. The spectrograph is tunable over the wavelength range 350 to 1000 nm, with resolution R from about 5000 to 20000. This spectrograph is ideally suited for high spatial resolution studies, with a sampled area of the sky 8" x 15", with 0.30" per microlens, in the mode to be used with the tip-tilt correction of SOAR. The project has been approved at the Project Design Review and the spectrograph is presently being constructed.