The NIKA2 instrument, a dual-band kilopixel KID array for millimetric astronomy

TL;DR

NIKA2 is a highly sensitive, dual-band millimeter wave camera with a tenfold increase in pixel count over its predecessor, enabling advanced astronomical observations at the IRAM 30m telescope.

Contribution

This paper introduces NIKA2, a new kilopixel KID array camera that significantly enhances detector capacity while maintaining performance, advancing millimeter wave astronomy instrumentation.

Findings

Achieved high detector performance with increased pixel count.

Successfully installed and commissioned at IRAM 30m telescope.

Prepared for scientific community access in 2016.

Abstract

NIKA2 (New IRAM KID Array 2) is a camera dedicated to millimeter wave astronomy based upon kilopixel arrays of Kinetic Inductance Detectors (KID). The pathfinder instrument, NIKA, has already shown state-of-the-art detector performance. NIKA2 builds upon this experience but goes one step further, increasing the total pixel count by a factor $\sim$10 while maintaining the same per pixel performance. For the next decade, this camera will be the resident photometric instrument of the Institut de Radio Astronomie Millimetrique (IRAM) 30m telescope in Sierra Nevada (Spain). In this paper we give an overview of the main components of NIKA2, and describe the achieved detector performance. The camera has been permanently installed at the IRAM 30m telescope in October 2015. It will be made accessible to the scientific community at the end of 2016, after a one-year commissioning period. When this happens, NIKA2 will become a fundamental tool for astronomers worldwide.