Mid-infrared astronomy with the E-ELT: Performance of METIS

TL;DR

This paper models the performance of METIS, a mid-infrared instrument for the E-ELT, demonstrating its potential for unprecedented sensitivity and resolution in IR astronomy across multiple spectral bands.

Contribution

It provides a detailed performance model of METIS, highlighting its capabilities and advantages over existing IR facilities, and emphasizes its unique spectral coverage and high-resolution features.

Findings

METIS will significantly improve IR sensitivity and resolution.

It will operate across L, M, and N bands with high spectral resolution.

METIS will enable new discoveries in IR astronomy in the next decade.

Abstract

We present results of performance modelling for METIS, the Mid-infrared European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) Imager and Spectrograph. Designed by a consortium of NOVA (Netherlands), UK Astronomy Technology Centre (UK), MPIA Heidelberg (Germany), CEA Saclay (France) and KU Leuven (Belgium), METIS will cover the atmospheric windows in L, M and N-band and will offer imaging, medium-resolution slit spectroscopy (R~1000-3000) and high-resolution integral field spectroscopy (R~100,000). Our model uses a detailed set of input parameters for site characteristics and atmospheric profiles, optical design, thermal background and the most up-to-date IR detector specifications. We show that METIS will bring an orders-of-magnitude level improvement in sensitivity and resolution over current ground-based IR facilities, bringing mid-IR sensitivities to the micro-Jansky regime. As the only proposed E-ELT instrument to cover this entire spectral region, and the only mid-IR high-resolution integral field unit planned on the ground or in space, METIS will open up a huge discovery space in IR astronomy in the next decade.