SPIP is a new-generation near-infrared spectropolarimeter / high-precision velocimeter to be mounted at the 2m Telescope Bernard Lyot (TBL) at Pic du Midi de Bigorre, the French Pyrénées astronomical observatory (alt. 2877 m), by end-2024, and mostly copied from SPIRou in operation at the 3.6 Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (MaunaKea, Hawaii, alt. 4200 m) since 2018. Observing in the 0.95-2.5 μm range (YJHK bands), SPIP, like SPIRou, will be dedicated to the detection and characterization of planetary worlds around nearby red dwarfs and to the study of how stellar magnetic fields impact star / planet formation. This paper presents the work performed on integrating and testing the cryogenic spectrograph unit (cooled down at 70K and thermally stabilized at 1mK), benefiting from both the robustness of SPIRou and the design improvements implemented for SPIP.
SPIP is a near infrared (nIR) echelle spectropolarimeter and a high-precision velocimeter for the 2-m Telescope Bernard Lyot (TBL – Pic du Midi, France), a twin version of SPIRou, mounted at the 3.6-m Canada France Hawaii Telescope (CFHT - Maunakea, Hawaii). This new generation instrument aims at detecting planetary worlds and Earth-like planets orbiting nearby red dwarfs, and at studying the impact of stellar magnetic fields on the formation of low-mass stars and their planets. The cryogenic spectrograph, cooled down at 70 K, is a fiber-fed double-pass cross-dispersed echelle spectrograph, covering the YJHK spectral bands (0.95-2.5 µm) in a single exposure. Among the key instrument parameters, high resolving power (of 70k) and long-term thermal stability (at a level better than 1 mK) are mandatory to achieve a relative radial velocity precision of 1-2 m/s. The engineering team at OMP / IRAP in Toulouse (France) took up the challenge of adapting and improving the SPIRou concept for SPIP to become the logical complement of SPIRou, to be used on the largest telescope in France for most of the available observing time. In this paper, we describe the work performed on the design, integration and in-lab tests on the assembled instrument in Toulouse. An evolved design on the Cassegrain unit, a completely new version of the spectrograph thermal insulation, as well as a number of minor upgrades with respect to SPIRou, should allow SPIP to be even more precise, stable and efficient than SPIRou
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