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Euclid II. The VIS instrument

Cropper, MS; Al-Bahlawan, A; Amiaux, J; Awan, S; Azzollini, R; Benson, K; Berthe, M; ... Scott, D; + view all (2024) Euclid II. The VIS instrument. Astronomy & Astrophysics 10.1051/0004-6361/202450996. (In press). Green open access

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Abstract

This paper presents the specification, design, and development of the Visible Camera (VIS) on the European Space Agency's mission. VIS is a large optical-band imager with a field of view of 0.54 deg$^2$ sampled at with an array of 609 Megapixels and a spatial resolution of . It will be used to survey approximately 14 000 deg$^2$ of extragalactic sky to measure the distortion of galaxies in the redshift range $z=0.1$--1.5 resulting from weak gravitational lensing, one of the two principal cosmology probes leveraged by With photometric redshifts, the distribution of dark matter can be mapped in three dimensions, and the extent to which this has changed with look-back time can be used to constrain the nature of dark energy and theories of gravity. The entire VIS focal plane will be transmitted to provide the largest images of the Universe from space to date, specified to reach AB with a signal-to-noise ratio S/N in a single broad E (r+i+z)$ band over a six-year survey. The particularly challenging aspects of the instrument are the control and calibration of observational biases, which lead to stringent performance requirements and calibration regimes. With its combination of spatial resolution, calibration knowledge, depth, and area covering most of the extra-Galactic sky, VIS will also provide a legacy data set for many other fields. This paper discusses the rationale behind the conception of VIS and describes the instrument design and development, before reporting the prelaunch performance derived from ground calibrations and brief results from the in-orbit commissioning. VIS should reach fainter than AB =25$ with $ S/N 10$ for galaxies with a full width at half maximum of in a diameter aperture over the Wide Survey, and $m_ AB for a Deep Survey that will cover more than 50 deg$^2$. The paper also describes how the instrument works with the telescope and survey, and with the science data processing, to extract the cosmological information.

Type: Article
Title: Euclid II. The VIS instrument
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202450996
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202450996
Language: English
Additional information: This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions.
Keywords: Space vehicles: instruments; Instrumentation: high angular resolution; Instrumentation: detectors; Methods: observational; Methods: statistical; Gravitational lensing: weak
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Physics and Astronomy
URI: https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10203006
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