Graduate Student Participation and Optics Upgrades for the Canarias InfraRed Camera Experiment

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AST-0352664/Eikenberry, U FloridaThe University of Florida is designing and building the Canarias Infrared Camera Experiment, a near-infrared open-use guest instrument for the soon-to-be-completed Gran Telescopio Canarias 10.4-meter telescope. The camera is an all-reflective 1-2.5 micron imager with a 3.4x3.4-arcminute field-of-view, offering built-in upgrade paths for narrow-band imaging, low- and moderate-resolution grism spectroscopy and imaging polarimetry. The combination of this camera and the Gran Telsescopio Canarias will produce one of the most powerful near-infrared scientific tools in the world, enabling a broad range of investigations from microquasars to stellar populations to high-redshift galaxy evolution (including at least eight projects currently funded by NSF). The present project will support the involvement of two graduate students in the design, fabrication, integration, and commissioning of the camera, as well as funds to populate the narrow-band imaging, spectroscopic, and polarimetric upgrades to the instrument. This work provides important training opportunities in astronomical instrumentation to two graduate students, and also greatly enhances the scientific productivity of the camera.