Astronomical Instrumentation PhD Projects

Research projects on offer in our Astronomical Instrumentation Group

Performance testing the ELT/METIS/LMS spectrometer

Dr Alistair Glasse (UK ATC), Prof Beth Biller, and Prof Ken Rice

The UKATC is building a very high spectral resolution coronographic integral field spectrometer (the LMS) as part of the METIS instrument, where METIS is scheduled to be the first instrument to be commissioned on the ELT in Chile as a unique tool for studying the atmospheric chemistry of exoplanets. The LMS will provide sub-kilometer per second velocity measurement accuracy on targets which are a few tens of milliarcseconds from their parent star, where both parameters are several times ‘better’ than can be achieved with the JWST. The successful candidate will join the instrument team in Edinburgh and the exoplanet group of the international METIS consortium’s science team. They will contribute to the performance verification testing of the LMS in Edinburgh, spending short periods in the Netherlands supporting the integration and testing of the full METIS instrument. As a member of the science team, they will help to develop the observations planned for the METIS team’s ~60-night allocation of ‘guaranteed’ time. We confidently expect that the experience and expertise gained with lab-based testing of the LMS will put them in a strong position to exploit METIS/ELT science when it goes live on the ELT (in 2030), and to take on the role of instrument scientist on similar astronomical instrumentation projects.