@article{BoggioBodenmuellerFrembergetal.2014, author = {Boggio, Jose M. Chavez and Bodenmueller, D. and Fremberg, T. and Haynes, R. and Roth, Martin M. and Eisermann, R. and Lisker, M. and Zimmermann, L. and Boehm, Michael}, title = {Dispersion engineered silicon nitride waveguides by geometrical and refractive-index optimization}, series = {Journal of the Optical Society of America : B, Optical physics}, volume = {31}, journal = {Journal of the Optical Society of America : B, Optical physics}, number = {11}, publisher = {Optical Society of America}, address = {Washington}, issn = {0740-3224}, doi = {10.1364/JOSAB.31.002846}, pages = {2846 -- 2857}, year = {2014}, abstract = {Dispersion engineering in silicon nitride (SiXNY) waveguides is investigated through the optimization of the waveguide transversal dimensions and refractive indices in a multicladding arrangement. Ultraflat dispersion of -84.0 +/- 0.5 ps/nm/km between 1700 and 2440 nm and 1.5 +/- 3 ps/nm/km between 1670 and 2500 nm is numerically demonstrated. It is shown that typical refractive index fluctuations as well as dimension fluctuations during fabrication of the SiXNY waveguides are a limitation for obtaining ultraflat dispersion profiles. Single- and multicladding waveguides are fabricated and their dispersion profiles measured (over nearly 1000 nm) using a low-coherence frequency domain interferometric technique. By appropriate thickness optimization, the zero-dispersion wavelength is tuned over a large spectral range in single-and multicladding waveguides with small refractive index contrast (3\%). A flat dispersion profile with +/- 3.2 ps/nm/km variation over 500 nm is obtained in a multicladding waveguide fabricated with a refractive index contrast of 37\%. Finally, we generate a nearly three-octave supercontinuum in this dispersion flattened multicladding SiXNY waveguide. (C) 2014 Optical Society of America}, language = {en} } @misc{EllisBauerBacigalupoetal.2018, author = {Ellis, S. C. and Bauer, S. and Bacigalupo, C. and Bland-Hawthorn, J. and Bryant, J. J. and Case, S. and Content, R. and Fechner, T. and Giannone, D. and Haynes, R. and Hernandez, E. and Horton, A. J. and Klauser, U. and Lawrence, J. S. and Leon-Saval, S. G. and Lindley, E. and L{\"o}hmannsr{\"o}ben, Hans-Gerd and Min, S. -S. and Pai, N. and Roth, M. and Shortridge, K. and Waller, L. and Xavier, Pascal and Zhelem, Ross}, title = {PRAXIS: an OH suppression optimised near infrared spectrograph}, series = {Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy VII}, volume = {10702}, journal = {Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy VII}, publisher = {SPIE-INT Soc Optical Engineering}, address = {Bellingham}, isbn = {978-1-5106-1958-6}, issn = {0277-786X}, doi = {10.1117/12.2311898}, pages = {16}, year = {2018}, abstract = {The problem of atmospheric emission from OH molecules is a long standing problem for near-infrared astronomy. PRAXIS is a unique spectrograph which is fed by fibres that remove the OH background and is optimised specifically to benefit from OH-Suppression. The OH suppression is achieved with fibre Bragg gratings, which were tested successfully on the GNOSIS instrument. PRAXIS uses the same fibre Bragg gratings as GNOSIS in its first implementation, and will exploit new, cheaper and more efficient, multicore fibre Bragg gratings in the second implementation. The OH lines are suppressed by a factor of similar to 1000, and the expected increase in the signal-to-noise in the interline regions compared to GNOSIS is a factor of similar to 9 with the GNOSIS gratings and a factor of similar to 17 with the new gratings. PRAXIS will enable the full exploitation of OH suppression for the first time, which was not achieved by GNOSIS (a retrofit to an existing instrument that was not OH-Suppression optimised) due to high thermal emission, low spectrograph transmission and detector noise. PRAXIS has extremely low thermal emission, through the cooling of all significantly emitting parts, including the fore-optics, the fibre Bragg gratings, a long length of fibre, and the fibre slit, and an optical design that minimises leaks of thermal emission from outside the spectrograph. PRAXIS has low detector noise through the use of a Hawaii-2RG detector, and a high throughput through a efficient VPH based spectrograph. PRAXIS will determine the absolute level of the interline continuum and enable observations of individual objects via an IFU. In this paper we give a status update and report on acceptance tests.}, language = {en} } @article{SchorckChristliebCohenetal.2009, author = {Schorck, Torben and Christlieb, Norbert and Cohen, Judy G. and Beers, Timothy C. and Shectman, Steve and Thompson, Ian and McWilliam, Andrew and Bessell, Michael S. and Norris, John E. and Mel{\´e}ndez, Jorge and Ram{\"i}rez, Solange and Haynes, D. and Cass, Paul and Hartley, Malcolm and Russell, Ken and Watson, Fred and Zickgraf, Franz-Josef and Behnke, Berit and Fechner, Cora and Fuhrmeister, Birgit and Barklem, Paul S. and Edvardsson, Bengt and Frebel, Anna and Wisotzki, Lutz and Reimers, Dieter}, title = {The stellar content of the Hamburg/ESO survey : V. the metallicity distribution function of the Galactic halo}, issn = {0004-6361}, doi = {10.1051/0004-6361/200810925}, year = {2009}, abstract = {We determine the metallicity distribution function (MDF) of the Galactic halo by means of a sample of 1638 metal-poor stars selected from the Hamburg/ESO objective-prism survey (HES). The sample was corrected for minor biases introduced by the strategy for spectroscopic follow-up observations of the metal-poor candidates, namely "best and brightest stars first". Comparison of the metallicities [Fe/H] of the stars determined from moderate-resolution (i.e., R similar to 2000) follow-up spectra with results derived from abundance analyses based on high-resolution spectra (i.e., R > 20 000) shows that the [Fe/H] estimates used for the determination of the halo MDF are accurate to within 0.3 dex, once highly C-rich stars are eliminated. We determined the selection function of the HES, which must be taken into account for a proper comparison between the HES MDF with MDFs of other stellar populations or those predicted by models of Galactic chemical evolution. The latter show a reasonable agreement with the overall shape of the HES MDF for [Fe/H] > -3.6, but only a model of Salvadori et al. (2007) with a critical metallicity for low-mass star formation of Z(cr) = 10(-3.4) Z(circle dot) reproduces the sharp drop at [Fe/H] similar to -3.6 present in the HES MDF. Although currently about ten stars at [Fe/H] < -3.6 are known, the evidence for the existence of a tail of the halo MDF extending to [Fe/H] similar to -5.5 is weak from the sample considered in this paper, because it only includes two stars [Fe/H] < -3.6. Therefore, a comparison with theoretical models has to await larger statistically complete and unbiased samples. A comparison of the MDF of Galactic globular clusters and of dSph satellites to the Galaxy shows qualitative agreement with the halo MDF, derived from the HES, once the selection function of the latter is included. However, statistical tests show that the differences between these are still highly significant.}, language = {en} } @article{BlandHawthornEllisLeonSavaletal.2011, author = {Bland-Hawthorn, Joss and Ellis, S. C. and Leon-Saval, S. G. and Haynes, R. and Roth, Martin M. and L{\"o}hmannsr{\"o}ben, Hans-Gerd and Horton, A. J. and Cuby, J. -G. and Birks, T. A. and Lawrence, J. S. and Gillingham, P. and Ryder, S. D. and Trinh, C.}, title = {A complex multi-notch astronomical filter to suppress the bright infrared sky}, series = {Nature Communications}, volume = {2}, journal = {Nature Communications}, number = {50}, publisher = {Nature Publ. Group}, address = {London}, issn = {2041-1723}, doi = {10.1038/ncomms1584}, pages = {7}, year = {2011}, abstract = {A long-standing and profound problem in astronomy is the difficulty in obtaining deep near-infrared observations due to the extreme brightness and variability of the night sky at these wavelengths. A solution to this problem is crucial if we are to obtain the deepest possible observations of the early Universe, as redshifted starlight from distant galaxies appears at these wavelengths. The atmospheric emission between 1,000 and 1,800 nm arises almost entirely from a forest of extremely bright, very narrow hydroxyl emission lines that varies on timescales of minutes. The astronomical community has long envisaged the prospect of selectively removing these lines, while retaining high throughput between them. Here we demonstrate such a filter for the first time, presenting results from the first on-sky tests. Its use on current 8 m telescopes and future 30 m telescopes will open up many new research avenues in the years to come.}, language = {en} }