Paper
19 July 2008 CASIMIR, The Caltech airborne submillimeter interstellar medium investigations receiver
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Abstract
CASIMIR, the Caltech Airborne Submillimeter Interstellar Medium Investigations Receiver is a multiband, far infrared and submillimeter, high resolution, heterodyne spectrometer under development for SOFIA. It is a first generation, PI class instrument. CASIMIR is designed for detailed, high sensitivity observations of warm (100 K) interstellar gas both in external galaxies and Galactic sources, including molecular clouds, circumstellar envelopes, and protostellar cores. Combining the 2.5 m SOFIA mirror with state of the art superconducting mixers, will give CASIMIR unprecedented sensitivity. Initially, CASIMIR will have two bands, at 1000 and 1250 GHz, and a further three bands, 550, 750, 1400 GHz, will be added soon after. Any four bands will be available on each flight. The availability of multiple bands during each flight will allow for efficient use of flight time. For example, searches for weak lines from rare species in bright sources can be carried out on the same flight with observations of abundant species in faint or distant objects.
© (2008) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Michael L. Edgar, Alexandre Karpov, Sean Lin, David Miller, Simon J. E. Radford, and Jonas Zmuidzinas "CASIMIR, The Caltech airborne submillimeter interstellar medium investigations receiver", Proc. SPIE 7020, Millimeter and Submillimeter Detectors and Instrumentation for Astronomy IV, 702012 (19 July 2008); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.790121
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KEYWORDS
Mirrors

Telescopes

Receivers

Terahertz radiation

Spectroscopy

Electronics

Observatories

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