3-3p
Luigi Spinoglio, Juan Antonio FernandezOntiveros, Matt Malkan
IAPS-INAF
Extragalactic far-IR spectroscopy
The large gap of the observational capability in the mid- to far-IR spectral ranges has only been partly covered by the last space telescopes, such as Herschel in the far-IR and will partly (only in the mid-IR) be covered by the JWST. Even if Herschel has been very successful for photometric imaging, however various limitations have hampered the far-IR spectroscopic observations, especially for observing extragalactic sources, because of the poor multiplexing capability of the PACS spectrometer. Important progress in extragalactic far-IR spectroscopy will only be reached through a dedicated large and cryogenically cooled space telescope, which is not foreseen before at least ten years from now. However, to start filling the so called far-IR gap, we would need to use the current available facilities with the best instrument possible. The SOFIA telescope is the observatory that could play this role, if equipped with a sensitive medium resolution spectrometer, covering as much as possible the spectral range from 20-210 µm, with a spectral resolution of R=500-1000, able -with state of the art detectors- to reach detection limits of 1-2 x 10^-18 W/m^2. In this presentation we will try to draw the science requirements for such a new instrument to be designed.
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