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"First light with Z-Spec, a new broadband mm-wave spectrometer, and
future prospects for sensitive far-IR spectroscopy from space"
Dr. Matt Bradford
Caltech - NASA/JPL

When:  Friday, 23 September 2005 at 12:00pm
Where: 2nd Floor Seminar Room

Abstract:
We have built and commissioned Z-Spec: a bolometer-based spectrometer
covering the full 187-310 GHz atmospheric window instantaneously at
moderate resolving power.  Z-Spec is designed for redshift surveys
using the CO rotational transitions and extragalactic line surveys in
the 1 mm window.  The instrument uses a novel waveguide grating and
160 bolometers cooled to ~50 mK.  We describe the scientific context
for the instrument, and report on the design, construction, and recent
commissioning of the instrument at the Caltech Submillimeter
Observatory (CSO).  We also highlight the opportunities for dramatic
gains in sensitivity possible using similar instruments with
low-background detectors on SPICA and other large cryogenic space
observatories.

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Matt obtained his BSc in Physics from Stanford and his PhD in
Astronomy at Cornell in 2001. During his thesis he built the South
Pole Imaging Fabry-Perot Interferometer (SPIFI), a direct detection
imaging spectrometer designed for use in the far-IR and submm (200,
350, 450 micron) windows available to the 1.7 m ASTRO telescope at the
South Pole, and in the submm (350 and 450 micron) windows available to
the JCMT in Hawaii. After a spending two years as a Caltech fellow, he
joined tenured staff at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he has been
developing a number of new far-IR/mm instruments.