Euclid. III. The NISP Instrument
Abstract
The Near-Infrared Spectrometer and Photometer (NISP) on board the Euclid satellite provides multiband photometry and R>=450 slitless grism spectroscopy in the 950-2020nm wavelength range. In this reference article we illuminate the background of NISP's functional and calibration requirements, describe the instrument's integral components, and provide all its key properties. We also sketch the processes needed to understand how NISP operates and is calibrated, and its technical potentials and limitations. Links to articles providing more details and technical background are included. NISP's 16 HAWAII-2RG (H2RG) detectors with a plate scale of 0.3" pix^-1 deliver a field-of-view of 0.57deg^2. In photo mode, NISP reaches a limiting magnitude of ~24.5AB mag in three photometric exposures of about 100s exposure time, for point sources and with a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of 5. For spectroscopy, NISP's point-source sensitivity is a SNR = 3.5 detection of an emission line with flux ~2x10^-16erg/s/cm^2 integrated over two resolution elements of 13.4A, in 3x560s grism exposures at 1.6 mu (redshifted Ha). Our calibration includes on-ground and in-flight characterisation and monitoring of detector baseline, dark current, non-linearity, and sensitivity, to guarantee a relative photometric accuracy of better than 1.5%, and relative spectrophotometry to better than 0.7%. The wavelength calibration must be better than 5A. NISP is the state-of-the-art instrument in the NIR for all science beyond small areas available from HST and JWST - and an enormous advance due to its combination of field size and high throughput of telescope and instrument. During Euclid's 6-year survey covering 14000 deg^2 of extragalactic sky, NISP will be the backbone for determining distances of more than a billion galaxies. Its NIR data will become a rich reference imaging and spectroscopy data set for the coming decades.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2405.13493,
title = {Euclid. III. The NISP Instrument},
author = {Euclid Collaboration and K. Jahnke and W. Gillard and M. Schirmer and A. Ealet and T. Maciaszek and E. Prieto and R. Barbier and C. Bonoli and L. Corcione and S. Dusini and F. Grupp and F. Hormuth and S. Ligori and L. Martin and G. Morgante and C. Padilla and R. Toledo-Moreo and M. Trifoglio and L. Valenziano and R. Bender and F. J. Castander and B. Garilli and P. B. Lilje and H. -W. Rix and N. Auricchio and A. Balestra and J. -C. Barriere and P. Battaglia and M. Berthe and C. Bodendorf and T. Boenke and W. Bon and A. Bonnefoi and A. Caillat and V. Capobianco and M. Carle and R. Casas and H. Cho and A. Costille and F. Ducret and S. Ferriol and E. Franceschi and J. -L. Gimenez and W. Holmes and A. Hornstrup and M. Jhabvala and R. Kohley and B. Kubik and R. Laureijs and D. Le Mignant and I. Lloro and E. Medinaceli and Y. Mellier and G. Polenta and G. D. Racca and A. Renzi and J. -C. Salvignol and A. Secroun and G. Seidel and M. Seiffert and C. Sirignano and G. Sirri and P. Strada and G. Smadja and L. Stanco and S. Wachter and S. Anselmi and E. Borsato and L. Caillat and F. Cogato and C. Colodro-Conde and P. -E. Crouzet and V. Conforti and M. D'Alessandro and Y. Copin and J. -C. Cuillandre and J. E. Davies and S. Davini and A. Derosa and J. J. Diaz and S. Di Domizio and D. Di Ferdinando and R. Farinelli and A. G. Ferrari and F. Fornari and L. Gabarra and C. M. Gutierrez and F. Giacomini and P. Lagier and F. Gianotti and O. Krause and F. Madrid and F. Laudisio and J. Macias-Perez and G. Naletto and M. Niclas and J. Marpaud and N. Mauri and R. da Silva and F. Passalacqua and K. Paterson and L. Patrizii and I. Risso and B. G. B. Solheim and M. Scodeggio and P. Stassi and J. Steinwagner and M. Tenti and G. Testera and R. Travaglini and S. Tosi and A. Troja and O. Tubio and C. Valieri and C. Vescovi and S. Ventura and N. Aghanim and B. Altieri and A. Amara and J. Amiaux and S. Andreon and H. Aussel and M. Baldi and S. Bardelli and A. Basset and A. Bonchi and D. Bonino and E. Branchini and M. Brescia and J. Brinchmann and S. Camera and C. Carbone and V. F. Cardone and J. Carretero and S. Casas and M. Castellano and S. Cavuoti and P. -Y. Chabaud and A. Cimatti and G. Congedo and C. J. Conselice and L. Conversi and F. Courbin and H. M. Courtois and M. Cropper and J. -G. Cuby and A. Da Silva and H. Degaudenzi and A. M. Di Giorgio and J. Dinis and M. Douspis and F. Dubath and C. A. J. Duncan and X. Dupac and M. Fabricius and M. Farina and S. Farrens and F. Faustini and P. Fosalba and S. Fotopoulou and N. Fourmanoit and M. Frailis and P. Franzetti and S. Galeotta and B. Gillis and C. Giocoli and P. Gómez-Alvarez and B. R. Granett and A. Grazian and L. Guzzo and M. Hailey and S. V. H. Haugan and J. Hoar and H. Hoekstra and I. Hook and P. Hudelot and B. Joachimi and E. Keihänen and S. Kermiche and A. Kiessling and M. Kilbinger and T. Kitching and M. Kümmel and M. Kunz and H. Kurki-Suonio and O. Lahav and V. Lindholm and J. Lorenzo Alvarez and D. Maino and E. Maiorano and O. Mansutti and O. Marggraf and K. Markovic and J. Martignac and N. Martinet and F. Marulli and R. Massey and D. C. Masters and S. Maurogordato and H. J. McCracken and S. Mei and M. Melchior and M. Meneghetti and E. Merlin and G. Meylan and J. J. Mohr and M. Moresco and L. Moscardini and R. Nakajima and R. C. Nichol and S. -M. Niemi and T. Nutma and K. Paech and S. Paltani and F. Pasian and J. A. Peacock and K. Pedersen and W. J. Percival and V. Pettorino and S. Pires and M. Poncet and L. A. Popa and L. Pozzetti and F. Raison and R. Rebolo and A. Refregier and J. Rhodes and G. Riccio and E. Romelli and M. Roncarelli and C. Rosset and E. Rossetti and H. J. A. Rottgering and R. Saglia and D. Sapone and M. Sauvage and R. Scaramella and P. Schneider and T. Schrabback and S. Serrano and P. Tallada-Crespí and D. Tavagnacco and A. N. Taylor and H. I. Teplitz and I. Tereno and F. Torradeflot and I. Tutusaus and T. Vassallo and G. 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Chary and J. Colbert and S. Contarini and T. Contini and A. R. Cooray and M. Costanzi and O. Cucciati and B. De Caro and S. de la Torre and G. Desprez and A. Díaz-Sánchez and H. Dole and S. Escoffier and P. G. Ferreira and I. Ferrero and A. Finoguenov and A. Fontana and K. Ganga and J. García-Bellido and V. Gautard and E. Gaztanaga and G. Gozaliasl and A. Gregorio and A. Hall and W. G. Hartley and S. Hemmati and H. Hildebrandt and J. Hjorth and S. Hosseini and M. Huertas-Company and O. Ilbert and J. Jacobson and S. Joudaki and J. J. E. Kajava and V. Kansal and D. Karagiannis and C. C. Kirkpatrick and F. Lacasa and V. Le Brun and J. Le Graet and L. Legrand and G. Libet and S. J. Liu and A. Loureiro and M. Magliocchetti and C. Mancini and F. Mannucci and R. Maoli and C. J. A. P. Martins and S. Matthew and L. Maurin and C. J. R. McPartland and R. B. Metcalf and M. Migliaccio and M. Miluzio and P. Monaco and C. Moretti and S. Nadathur and L. Nicastro and Nicholas A. Walton and J. Odier and M. Oguri and V. Popa and D. Potter and A. Pourtsidou and P. -F. Rocci and R. P. Rollins and B. Rusholme and M. Sahlén and A. G. Sánchez and C. Scarlata and J. Schaye and J. A. Schewtschenko and A. Schneider and M. Schultheis and M. Sereno and F. Shankar and A. Shulevski and G. Sikkema and A. Silvestri and P. Simon and A. Spurio Mancini and J. Stadel and S. A. Stanford and K. Tanidis and C. Tao and N. Tessore and R. Teyssier and S. Toft and M. Tucci and J. Valiviita and D. Vergani and F. Vernizzi and G. Verza and P. Vielzeuf and J. R. Weaver and L. Zalesky and I. A. Zinchenko and M. Archidiacono and F. Atrio-Barandela and C. L. Bennett and T. Bouvard and F. Caro and S. Conseil and P. Dimauro and P. -A. Duc and Y. Fang and A. M. N. Ferguson and T. Gasparetto and I. Kova{č}ić and S. Kruk and A. M. C. Le Brun and T. I. Liaudat and A. Montoro and A. Mora and C. Murray and L. Pagano and D. Paoletti and M. Radovich and E. Sarpa and E. Tommasi and A. Viitanen and J. Lesgourgues and M. E. Levi and J. Martín-Fleitas},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2405.13493},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
Paper submitted as part of the A&A special issue 'Euclid on Sky', which contains Euclid key reference papers and first results from the Euclid Early Release Observations