We describe the performance of our latest generations of sensitive wide-band high-resolution digital fast Fourier transform spectrometer (FFTS). Their design, optimized for a wide range of radio astronomical applications, is presented. Developed for operation with the GREAT far infrared heterodyne spectrometer on-board SOFIA, the eXtended bandwidth FFTS (XFFTS) offers a high instantaneous bandwidth of 2.5 GHz with 88.5 kHz spectral resolution and has been in routine operation during SOFIA's Basic Science since July 2011. We discuss the advanced field programmable gate array (FPGA) signal processing pipeline, with an optimized multi-tap polyphase filter bank algorithm that provides a nearly loss-less time-to-frequency data conversion with significantly reduced frequency scallop and fast sidelobe fall-off. Our digital spectrometers have been proven to be extremely reliable and robust, even under the harsh environmental conditions of an airborne observatory, with Allan-variance stability times of several 1000 s. An enhancement of the present 2.5 GHz XFFTS will duplicate the number of spectral channels (64k), offering spectroscopy with even better resolution during Cycle 1 observations.

Abstract. A large scale survey of the Galactic center region in the C18 O(J = 1 → 0) transition is presented. This survey was obtained with the 1.2 m Southern Millimeter-Wave Telescope (SMWT) at the Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory (CTIO) near La Serena, Chile. It covers the region −1.• 05 ≤ l ≤ +3.• 6 and −0.• 9 ≤ b ≤ +0.• 75 with a grid spacing of 9 , i.e. the sampling is at full FWHP beamwidth. 357 positions were in total observed. After reviewing the instrumentation of the 1.2 m SMWT, the observing techniques, and the methods used in the data reduction, the data of the survey are presented and morphologically described. In addition, data of the HNCO(5 0,5 − 4 0,4 ) line are presented, which was also included in the large bandwidth of the spectrometer.12 CO(1 − 0) measurements performed for comparison purposes are presented and compared with other 12 CO results. The maps of the C 18 O(1 − 0) survey demonstrate that there are great differences between the distribution of the optically thin C 18 O(1 − 0) emission and the usually optically thick 12 CO(1 − 0) emission.

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We report on developments of submillimeter heterodyne arrays for high resolution spectroscopy with APEX. Shortly, we will operate state-of-the-art instruments in all major atmospheric windows accessible from Llano de Chajnantor. CHAMP + , a dual-color 2× 7 element heterodyne array for operation in the 450 µm and 350 µm atmospheric windows is in operation since late 2007. With its state-of-the-art SIS detectors and wide tunable local oscillators, its cold optics with single sideband filters and with 3 GHz of processed IF bandwidth per pixel, CHAMP + does provide outstanding observing capabilities. The Large APEX sub-Millimeter Array (LAsMA) is in the final design phase, with an installation goal in 2009. The receiver will operate 7 and 19 pixels in the lower submillimeter windows, 285-375 GHz and 385-520 GHz, respectively. The front-ends are served by an array of digital wideband Fast Fourier Transform spectrometers currently processing up to 32×1.5 (optionally 1.8) GHz of bandwidth. For CHAMP + , we process 2.8 GHz of instantaneous bandwidth (in 16.4 k channels) for each of the 14 pixels.

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