Oral Presentation
Korean Contribution to SPICA: Development of NIR Instrument, FPC
Presenter: Woong-Seob Jeong (KASI)
The SPICA (SPace Infrared Telescope for Cosmology & Astrophysics) is a next-generation infrared space telescope optimized for mid- and far-infrared observation with a cryogenically cooled 3m-class telescope. Owing to unprecedented sensitivity and high spatial resolution, the focal plane instruments will challenge to reveal many astronomical key issues from the star-formation history of the universe to the planetary formation.
The Korean contribution to SPICA as an international collaboration is the development of the near-infrared instrument, FPC (Focal Plane Instrument). The proposed FPC has two near-infrared cameras: FPC-G (Guider) for a system instrument as a part of Attitude and Orbit Control System (AOCS) and FPC-S (Science) for a scientific observation in the near-infrared as well as a backup function of FPC-G. The FPC-G will perform the fine guiding complementing the attitude information from AOCS. The backup instrument of FPC-G, FPC-S has the capabilities of both low-resolution imaging spectroscopy (R~20) and wide-band imaging. The proposed observational strategies such as the near-infrared specttocopic survey and the parallel imaging survey will strengthen advantages of the FPC-S. The legacy science from FPC-S is to probe the origin of cosmic near-infrared background radiation and the star formation history at high redshift. The large area imaging survey in parallel imaging mode gives us opportunities to study the rare, bright objects such as quasars, bright star-forming galaxies and ultra-cool brown dwarfs.