MgII Absorbers at High Redshift Using J-Band High Resolution Spectroscopy on the Hobby-Eberly Telescope

这是一个探索性研究（SGER）项目，旨在改进和测试一台红外照相机和摄谱仪（JCAM），它将用于在德克萨斯大学麦克唐纳天文台的霍比-埃伯利望远镜（HET）上获得光谱。然后，这些数据将被用来测试修改后的设备是否适合测量0.95至1.35毫米波长范围内的非常微弱的类星体的光谱，这相当于MgII，2796 - 2803埃吸收线的z= 2.4至3.8的红移。获得这些数据对类星体研究的潜在科学影响非常高。HET可能无法获得这些潜在的非常重要的数据。从望远镜目前在视觉上的表现外推，很明显，拟议的，修改后的摄谱仪预计将有助于获得比V=17等更亮的源的数据。在这个红移范围内的类星体位于星等范围V=模拟表明，对于像盘为18 - 19等的18等天体，类星体中的吸收线在夜空背景下是可以探测到的。1.5角秒，但目前HET不具有维持1.3至1.5角秒的图像尺寸所需的长期、在目标上的稳定性。虽然望远镜升级可以提供必要的图像质量，但确定该仪器极限能力的唯一有意义的方法是进行实际测试。该项目的资金由美国国家科学基金会的河外天文宇宙学计划（AST/EXC）提供。

ABSTRACT AST 0123885Churchill This is a Small Grant for Exploratory Research (SGER) project to modify and test an infrared camera and spectrograph (the JCAM) which will be used to obtain spectra on the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) at the McDonald Observatory of the University of Texas. This data will then be used to test the suitability of the modified equipment for measuring spectra of very faint Quasars in the wavelength range of 0.95 to 1.35 millimicrons which corresponds to redshifts of z= 2.4 to 3.8 In the MgII, 2796 - 2803 Angstrom absorption line. The potential scientific impact of obtaining this data for Quasar research is very high. There is a risk that this potentially very important data may not be obtainable with the HET. Extrapolating from the present performance of the telescope in the visual, it is clear that the proposed, modified spectrograph is expected to be useful for obtaining data on sources brighter than V=17 mag. However, the quasars at this redshift range lie in the magnitude range V=18 to 19 mag. Simulations show that the absorption lines in the quasars are detectable against the night sky background for 18th mag objects with an image disk of 1.5 arc seconds but the HET does not at present have the long-term, on-target stability necessary to maintain image sizes of 1.3 to 1.5 arc seconds. Although a telescope upgrade may provide the necessary image quality, the only meaningful way to determine the limiting capabilities of this instrument is to conduct actual tests. Funding for this project was provided by the NSF program for Extragalactic Astronomy & Cosmology (AST/EXC).***