MUSCAT focal plane verification

Abstract

The Mexico-UK Submillimetre Camera for Astronomy (MUSCAT) is the second-generation large-format continuum camera operating in the 1.1 mm band to be installed on the 50-m diameter Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT) in Mexico. The focal plane of the instrument is made up of 1458 horn coupled lumped-element kinetic inductance detectors (LEKID) divided equally into six channels deposited on three silicon wafers. Here we present the preliminary results of the complete characterisation in the laboratory of the MUSCAT focal plane. Through the instrument's readout system, we perform frequency sweeps of the array to identify the resonance frequencies, and continuous timestream acquisitions to measure and characterise the intrinsic noise and 1/f knee of the detectors. Subsequently, with a re-imaging lens and a blackbody point source, the beams of every detector are mapped, obtaining a mean FWHM size of ~3.27 mm, close to the expected 3.1 mm. Then, by varying the intensity of a beam filling blackbody source, we measure the responsivity and noise power spectral density (PSD) for each detector under an optical load of 300 K, obtaining the noise equivalent power (NEP), with which we verify that the majority of the detectors are photon noise limited. Finally, using a Fourier Transform Spectrometer (FTS), we measure the spectral response of the instrument, which indicate a bandwidth of 1.0-1.2 mm centred on 1.1 mm, as expected.

Authors 22

1. Marcial Tapia

   National Institute of Astrophysics, Optics and Electronics

   Affiliation as printed

   Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica (Mexico)

2. Peter A. R. Ade

   Cardiff University

   Affiliation as printed

   Cardiff Univ. (United Kingdom)

3. Peter S. Barry

   Argonne National Laboratory · University of Chicago

   Affiliation as printed

   Argonne National Lab. (United States)

   Univ. of Chicago (United States)

4. Tom Brien

   Cardiff University

   Affiliation as printed

   Cardiff Univ. (United Kingdom)

5. Edgar Castillo-Domínguez Aachen SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research

   Space Research Organisation Netherlands

   Affiliation as printed

   SRON-Netherlands Institute for Space Research (Netherlands)

6. D. Ferrusca

   National Institute of Astrophysics, Optics and Electronics

   Affiliation as printed

   Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica (Mexico)

7. Víctor Gómez-Rivera

   National Institute of Astrophysics, Optics and Electronics

   Affiliation as printed

   Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica (Mexico)

8. Peter Hargrave

   Cardiff University

   Affiliation as printed

   Cardiff Univ. (United Kingdom)

9. José Luis Hernández-Rebollar

   National Institute of Astrophysics, Optics and Electronics

   Affiliation as printed

   Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica (Mexico)

10. Amber L. Hornsby

    Cardiff University

    Affiliation as printed

    Cardiff Univ. (United Kingdom)

11. David Handel Hughes

    National Institute of Astrophysics, Optics and Electronics

    Affiliation as printed

    Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica (Mexico)

12. José Miguel Jáuregui-García

    National Institute of Astrophysics, Optics and Electronics

    Affiliation as printed

    Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica (Mexico)

13. Philip D. Mauskopf

    Arizona State University

    Affiliation as printed

    Arizona State Univ. (United States)

14. Dulce Murias

    National Institute of Astrophysics, Optics and Electronics

    Affiliation as printed

    Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica (Mexico)

15. Ανδρέας Παπαγεωργίου

    Cardiff University

    Affiliation as printed

    Cardiff Univ. (United Kingdom)

16. Enzo Pascale

    Sapienza University of Rome

    Affiliation as printed

    La Sapienza Univ. di Roma (Italy)

17. Abel Pérez

    National Institute of Astrophysics, Optics and Electronics

    Affiliation as printed

    Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica (Mexico)

18. Sam Rowe

    Cardiff University

    Affiliation as printed

    Cardiff Univ. (United Kingdom)

19. Carole Tucker

    National Institute of Astrophysics, Optics and Electronics

    Affiliation as printed

    Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica (Mexico)

20. Miguel Velázquez

    National Institute of Astrophysics, Optics and Electronics

    Affiliation as printed

    Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica (Mexico)

21. Salvador Ventura

    National Institute of Astrophysics, Optics and Electronics

    Affiliation as printed

    Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica (Mexico)

22. Simon M. Doyle

    Cardiff University

    Affiliation as printed

    Cardiff Univ. (United Kingdom)