The CUBES Instrument Model and Simulation Tools. Their role in the project Phase A study

TL;DR

The paper details the development of simulation tools for the CUBES spectrograph, aiding its design and performance evaluation to optimize UV observations from ground-based telescopes.

Contribution

It introduces the End-to-End and Exposure Time Calculator tools, including a community-accessible version, for design optimization and scientific case testing of CUBES.

Findings

E2E simulator helped define the baseline design.

ETC demonstrated potential for detecting UV features.

Tools support scientific evaluation and community engagement.

Abstract

We present the simulation tools developed to aid the design phase of the Cassegrain U-Band Efficient Spectrograph (CUBES) for the Very Large Telescope (VLT), exploring aspects of the system design and evaluating the performance for different design configurations. CUBES aims to be the 'ultimate' ultraviolet (UV) instrument at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in terms of throughput, with the goal to cover the bluest part of the spectrum accessible from the ground (300 nm to 400 nm) with the highest possible efficiency. Here we introduce the End-to-End (E2E) and the Exposure Time Calculator (ETC) tools. The E2E simulator has been developed with different versions to meet the needs of different users, including a version that can be accessed for use by the broader scientific community using a Jupyter notebook. The E2E tool was used by the system team to help define the Phase A baseline design of the instrument, as well as in scientific evaluation of a possible low-resolution mode. The ETC is a web-based tool through which the science community are able to test a range of science cases for CUBES, demonstrating its potential to push the limiting magnitude for the detection of specific UV-features, such as abundance estimates of beryllium in main sequence stars.