Prime Focus Spectrograph (PFS) for the Subaru Telescope: Overview, recent progress, and future perspectives

TL;DR

The Prime Focus Spectrograph (PFS) for the Subaru Telescope is a wide-field, multiplexed spectrograph covering optical to near-infrared wavelengths, with recent progress towards construction and future operational plans.

Contribution

This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the PFS instrument, including its design, current development status, and future perspectives.

Findings

Design of a 3-arm spectrograph covering 380-1260nm

Development progress towards system integration in 2017-2018

Preparation for engineering operations in 2018-2019

Abstract

PFS (Prime Focus Spectrograph), a next generation facility instrument on the 8.2-meter Subaru Telescope, is a very wide-field, massively multiplexed, optical and near-infrared spectrograph. Exploiting the Subaru prime focus, 2394 reconfigurable fibers will be distributed over the 1.3 deg field of view. The spectrograph has been designed with 3 arms of blue, red, and near-infrared cameras to simultaneously observe spectra from 380nm to 1260nm in one exposure at a resolution of ~1.6-2.7A. An international collaboration is developing this instrument under the initiative of Kavli IPMU. The project is now going into the construction phase aiming at undertaking system integration in 2017-2018 and subsequently carrying out engineering operations in 2018-2019. This article gives an overview of the instrument, current project status and future paths forward.