The vacuum and cryogenics system of the SOXS spectrograph

TL;DR

The paper details the design and testing of the vacuum and cryogenic system for the SOXS spectrograph, enabling independent operation of its UV-VIS and NIR arms for astronomical observations.

Contribution

It presents the final design and functionalities of the cryo-vacuum control system for the SOXS spectrograph, including integration test results.

Findings

Successful evacuation and cooling of the spectrograph components.

Independent operation of UV-VIS and NIR arms achieved.

System passed integration laboratory tests.

Abstract

SOXS (Son Of X-Shooter) is a single object spectrograph built by an international consortium for the ESO NTT telescope. SOXS is based on the heritage of the X-Shooter at the ESO-VLT with two arms (UV-VIS and NIR) working in parallel, with a Resolution-Slit product of about 4500, capable of simultaneously observing over the entire band the complete spectral range from the U- to the H-band. SOXS will carry out rapid and long-term Target of Opportunity requests on a variety of astronomical objects. The SOXS vacuum and cryogenic control system has been designed to evacuate, cool down and maintain the UV-VIS detector and the entire NIR spectrograph to their operating temperatures. The design chosen allows the two arms to be operated independently. This paper describes the final design of the cryo-vacuum control system, its functionalities and the tests performed in the integration laboratories.