Abstract
Herschel/SPIRE Fourier transform spectrometer (FTS) observations contain emission from both the Herschel Telescope and the SPIRE Instrument itself, both of which are typically orders of magnitude greater than the emission from the astronomical source, and must be removed in order to recover the source spectrum. The effects of the Herschel Telescope and the SPIRE Instrument are removed during data reduction using relative spectral response calibration curves and emission models. We present the evolution of the methods used to derive the relative spectral response calibration curves for the SPIRE FTS. The relationship between the calibration curves and the ultimate sensitivity of calibrated SPIRE FTS data is discussed and the results from the derivation methods are compared. These comparisons show that the latest derivation methods result in calibration curves that impart a factor of between 2 and 100 less noise to the overall error budget, which results in calibrated spectra for individual observations whose noise is reduced by a factor of 2–3, with a gain in the overall spectral sensitivity of 23 % and 21 % for the two detector bands, respectively.
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Acknowledgments
Herschel is an ESA space observatory with science instruments provided by European-led Principal Investigator consortia with important participation from NASA. SPIRE has been developed by a consortium of institutes led by Cardiff University (UK) and including Univ. Lethbridge (Canada); NAOC (China); CEA, LAM (France); IFSI, Univ. Padua (Italy); IAC (Spain); Stockholm Observatory (Sweden); Imperial College London, RAL, UCL-MSSL, UKATC, Univ. Sussex (UK); and Caltech, JPL, NHSC, Univ. Colorado (USA). This development has been supported by national funding agencies: CSA (Canada); NAOC (China); CEA, CNES, CNRS (France); ASI (Italy); MCINN (Spain); SNSB (Sweden); STFC (UK); and NASA (USA).
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Fulton, T., Hopwood, R., Baluteau, JP. et al. Herschel SPIRE FTS relative spectral response calibration. Exp Astron 37, 381–395 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10686-013-9364-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10686-013-9364-z