Line identification including off-axis spectra with the Herschel SPIRE spectrometer

Abstract

The European Space Agency (ESA) Herschel Mission concluded observation of the Far-infrared (FIR) Universe in 2013, providing a wealth of observations of the interstellar medium and distant galaxies. The Spectral and Photometric Imaging Receiver (SPIRE), one of Herschel's three instruments, consists of an imaging photometer and an imaging Fourier Transform Spectrometer (FTS). The SPIRE team has developed an automated routine to extract spectral features from all SPIRE FTS observations.

This thesis introduces FIR astronomy and instrumentation, and the legacy of FIR space telescopes through to Herschel. The SPIRE instrument and the Feature Finder are introduced. This thesis includes the methods by which the molecular and atomic transitions of the lines extracted from SPIRE FTS observations are identified, and presents these identification results. The application of the feature finder to SPIRE FTS off-axis detectors is also detailed and presented. The thesis concludes with a brief discussion of future FIR instrumentation.