Direct Detection Spectroscopy in the 350 μm Window: SPIFI on the JCMT

Abstract

We present the results from our first observing runs with the South Pole Imaging Fabry-Perot Inteferometer (SPIFI). SPIFI is a direct detection imaging spectrometer for use in the submillimeter - the first of its kind. SPIFI employs a 5 × 5 element array of bolometers as its focal plane, and uses two Fabry-Perot in series as its resolution achieving devices. To date, SPIFI has had 5 observing runs on the 15 meter James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT), three of which were entirely weathered out. During the two good runs, we obtained fully sampled maps in the 370 μm [CI] fine structure line and 372 μm CO(7→6) rotational line of the Galactic Center and the nuclei of several infrared bright galaxies. We present the results, and preliminary analysis of the data obtained for several of these sources below. To date, we have only used SPIFI in the 350 μm telluric window, but SPIFI can also access the 450 and 600 μm windows available to the JCMT, and the far-IR 200 μm window available to the NSF's 1.7 m AST/RO telescope at the South Pole. SPIFI is fully described in [1,2,9].