LRS2: the new facility low resolution integral field spectrograph for the Hobby-Eberly telescope

Chonis, Taylor S.; Hill, Gary J.; Lee, Hanshin; Tuttle, Sarah; Vattiat, Brian L.

doi:10.1117/12.2056005

Cited by 23 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…We observed WD 1856 on 30 October 2019 and 1 November 2019 with the Low Resolution Spectrograph 2 (LRS2 49 ) on the 10 meter Hobby Eberly Telescope at McDonald Observatory. LRS2 is a combination of two integral field dual-channel spectrographs: one operating in the blue (3700 to 7000Å) and one operating in the red (6500 to 10500Å).…”

Section: Spectroscopy Of Wd 1856mentioning

confidence: 99%

A giant planet candidate transiting a white dwarf

Vanderburg

Rappaport

et al. 2020

Nature

163

101

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Astronomers have discovered thousands of planets outside the solar system 1 , most of which orbit stars that will eventually evolve into red giants and then into white dwarfs. During the red giant phase, any close-orbiting planets will be engulfed by the star 2 , but more distant planets can survive this phase and remain in orbit around the white dwarf 3,4 . Some white dwarfs show evidence for rocky material floating in their atmospheres 5 , in warm debris disks [6][7][8][9] , or orbiting very closely [10][11][12] , which has been interpreted as the debris of rocky planets that were scattered inward and tidally disrupted 13 . Recently, the discovery of a gaseous debris disk with a composition similar to ice giant planets 14 demonstrated that massive planets might also find their way into tight orbits around white dwarfs, but it is unclear whether the planets can survive the journey. So far, the detection of intact planets in close orbits around white dwarfs has remained elusive. Here, we report the discovery of a giant planet candidate transiting the white dwarf WD 1856+534 (TIC 267574918) every 1.4 days. The planet candidate is roughly the same size as Jupiter and is no more than 14 times as massive (with 95% confidence). Other cases of white dwarfs with close brown dwarf or stellar companions are explained as the consequence of common-envelope evolution, wherein the original orbit is enveloped during the red-giant phase and shrinks due to friction. In this case, though, the low mass and relatively long orbital period of the planet candidate make common-envelope evolution less likely. Instead, the WD 1856+534 system seems to demonstrate that giant planets can be scattered into tight orbits without being tidally disrupted, and motivates searches for smaller transiting planets around white dwarfs. WD 1856+534 (hereafter, WD 1856 for brevity) is located 25 parsecs away in a visual triple star system. It has an effective temperature of 4710 ± 60 Kelvin and became a white dwarf 5.9 ± 0.5 billion years ago, based on theoretical models for how white dwarfs cool over time. The total system age, including the star's main sequence lifetime, must be older. Table 1 gives the other key parameters of the star. WD 1856 is one of thousands of white dwarfs that was targeted for observations with NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS ), in order to search for any periodic dimming events caused by planetary transits. A statistically significant transit-like event was detected by the TESS Science Processing Operations Center (SPOC) pipeline based

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Section: Spectroscopy Of Wd 1856mentioning

confidence: 99%

A giant planet candidate transiting a white dwarf

Vanderburg

Rappaport

et al. 2020

Nature

163

101

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“…In addition, 1.87 days after eruption, we obtained a spectrum of M31N 2008-12a using the blue channel of the 10 m Hobby Eberly Telescope's (HET's) new integral-field Low Resolution Spectrograph (LRS2-B; Chonis et al 2014Chonis et al , 2016. This dualbeam instrument uses 280 fibers and a lenslet array to produce spectra with a resolution of R 1910 between the wavelengths 3700 and 4700 Å, and R 1140 between 4600 and 7000 Å over a 12 6 ´ region of sky.…”

Section: Visible Spectroscopymentioning

confidence: 99%

Breaking the Habit: The Peculiar 2016 Eruption of the Unique Recurrent Nova M31N 2008-12a

Henze

Darnley

Williams

et al. 2018

ApJ

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“…The first "VIRUS" installation was actually half of LRS2 (Low Resolution Spectrograph 2) -a separate instrument, but designed within the mechanical infrastructure and interface of VIRUS (13) as well as a VIRUS unit. The installation mechanically is identical, and the only di↵erence is that in the end the system is wired into a separate VMUX/computer interface from VIRUS.…”

Section: Installationmentioning

confidence: 99%

VIRUS early installation and commissioning

et al. 2016

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VIRUS is a massively replicated spectrograph built for HETDEX, the Hobby Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment. It consists of 156 channels within 78 units fed by 34944 fibers over the 22 arcminute field of the upgraded HET. VIRUS covers a relatively narrow bandpass (350-550nm) at low resolution (R ⇠ 700) to target the emission of Lyman-alpha emitters (LAEs) for HETDEX. VIRUS is a first demonstration of industrial style assembly line replication in optical astronomy.Installation and testing of VIRUS units began in November of 2015. This winter we celebrated the first on sky instrument activity of the upgraded HET, using a VIRUS unit and LRS2-R (the upgraded facility Low Resolution Spectrograph for the HET). Here we describe progress in VIRUS installation and commissioning through June 2016. We include early sky data obtained to characterize spectrograph performance and on sky performance of the newly upgraded HET. As part of the instrumentation for first science light at the HET, the IFU fed spectrographs were used to test a full range of telescope system functionality including the field calibration unit (FCU). We also use placement of strategic IFUs to map the new HET field to the fiber placement, and demonstrate actuation of the dithering mechanism key to HETDEX observations.

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LRS2: the new facility low resolution integral field spectrograph for the Hobby-Eberly telescope

Cited by 23 publications

References 56 publications

A giant planet candidate transiting a white dwarf

A giant planet candidate transiting a white dwarf

Breaking the Habit: The Peculiar 2016 Eruption of the Unique Recurrent Nova M31N 2008-12a

VIRUS early installation and commissioning

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