The NIKA2 large field-of-view millimeter continuum camera for the 30-m IRAM telescope
Creators: name: Adam, Remi
name: Adane, Amar
name: Ade, P. A. R.
name: André, Philippe
name: Andrianasolo, Aina
name: Aussel, Herve
name: Beelen, Alexandre
name: Benoit, Alain
name: Bideaud, Aurelien
name: Billot, Nicolas
name: Bourrion, Olivier
name: Bracco, Andrea
name: Calvo, Martino
name: Catalano, Andrea
name: Coiffard, Gregoire
name: Comis, Barbara
name: De Petris, Marco
name: Désert, François-Xavier
name: Doyle, Simon
name: Driessen, E. F. C.
name: Evans, Ruth
name: Goupy, Johannes
name: Kramer, Carsten
name: Lagache, Guilaine
name: Leclercq, Samuel
name: Leggeri, Jean-Paul
name: Lestrade, Jean-François
name: Macias-Perez, Juan-Francisco
name: Mauskopf, Philip
name: Mayet, Frederic
name: Maury, Anaelle
name: Monfardini, Alessandro
name: Navarro, Santiago
name: Pascale, Enzo
name: Perotto, Laurence
name: Pisano, Giampaolo
name: Ponthieu, Nicolas
name: Reveret, Vincent
name: Rigby, Andrew
name: Ritacco, Alessia
name: Romero, Charles
name: Roussel, Helene
name: Ruppin, Florian
name: Schuster, Karl
name: Sievers, Albrecht
name: Triqueneaux, Sebastien
name: Tucker, Carole
name: Zylka, Robert
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2017
Subjects: subject: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: Millimeter-wave continuum astronomy is today an indispensable tool for both general Astrophysics studies and Cosmology. General purpose, large field-of-view instruments are needed to map the sky at intermediate angular scales not accessible by the high-resolution interferometers and by the coarse angular resolution space-borne or ground-based surveys. These instruments have to be installed at the focal plane of the largest single-dish telescopes. In this context, we have constructed and deployed a multi-thousands pixels dual-band (150 and 260 GHz, respectively 2mm and 1.15mm wavelengths) camera to image an instantaneous field-of-view of 6.5arc-min and configurable to map the linear polarization at 260GHz. We are providing a detailed description of this instrument, named NIKA2 (New IRAM KID Arrays 2), in particular focusing on the cryogenics, the optics, the focal plane arrays based on Kinetic Inductance Detectors (KID) and the readout electronics. We are presenting the performance measured on the sky during the commissioning runs that took place between October 2015 and April 2017 at the 30-meter IRAM (Institut of Millimetric Radio Astronomy) telescope at Pico Veleta. NIKA2 has been successfully deployed and commissioned, performing in-line with the ambitious expectations. In particular, NIKA2 exhibits FWHM angular resolutions of around 11 and 17.5 arc-seconds at respectively 260 and 150GHz. The NEFD (Noise Equivalent Flux Densities) demonstrated on the maps are, at these two respective frequencies, 33 and 8 mJy*sqrt(s). A first successful science verification run has been achieved in April 2017. The instrument is currently offered to the astronomical community during the coming winter and will remain available for at least the next ten years.
description: Accepted for publication on Astronomy &amp; Astrophysics, in press