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SPIRou is a near-infrared spectropolarimeter which has been in operation since Feb 2019 (beginning of 19A semester) at the Canada-France-Hawai'i Telescope. SPIRou is optimized for high-precision radial velocity measurements, and benefits from the unique observing conditions of
Maunakea, Hawai'i.
SPIRou is fiber-fed from the Cassegrain focus of the telescope and has been built to obtain very high radial velocity accuracy, of the order of meters/second over several years. SPIRou is designed as an echelle spectrograph that allows to observe a reference spectrum simultaneously to the object
of interest. The SPIRou Cassegain unit includes a polarimeter to change the polarization of the incident light and derive linear or circular polarization states of the observed target. The SPIRou spectrograph is embedded in a cryogenic vessel cooled down to a temperature of 80 K and stabilized at
a precision below 2 mK. The spectrograph provides YJHK spectra from 0.95 to 2.35 microns in a single shot, at a spectral resolution of ~75,000.
As with CFHT's other instruments, SPIRou is offered in Queued Service Observing (QSO) mode only, during specific SPIRou instrument runs. SPIRou data is distributed to PIs by the Data Archiving & Distribution System (DADS) and
archived at CADC. Raw and processed data are delivered.
SPIRou is an international project lead by IRAP, involving CFHT along with the countries of France, Canada, Switzerland, Portugal, Brazil, Taiwan and Portugal. The SPIRou IRAP Project page covers, in detail, the various parts of the project, milestones, and those involved.
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