Astrophysics Seminar: Dr. Ronald Lopez, University of California Santa Barbara

Conventional high-resolution echelle spectrographs are typically designed to take detailed spectra of a very limited field of view, such as a slit or fiber. Alternatively, multi-object spectrographs are designed to acquire spectra of multiple targets simultaneously at the expense of spectral resolution, wavelength coverage, and/or instrument cost. The inherent energy resolution of superconducting microwave kinetic inductance detectors (MKIDs) can be used to eliminate the need for a cross-dispersing element in an echelle spectrograph, dramatically simplifying the optical design and freeing up valuable detector space that can be allocated to the spectra of multiple objects. This testbed lays the foundation for a new class of high-resolution multi-object spectrographs (HRMOS) that do not need to compromise resolution or coverage. A future, fiber-fed MKID HRMOS for HWO or the extremely large class of telescopes will be able to sample a comprehensive region around a star with an R~100,000 to simultaneously detect and characterize exoplanet atmospheres using high-dispersion coronagraphy (HDC). With this technique, star/planet contrast can be increased by a factor of 1000, which is a large step towards reaching the contrast goals of 10-10 for characterizing earth like planets around sunlike stars.