EURD: An extreme ultraviolet spectrograph to probe the hot interstellar medium

Abstract

The EURD instrument has been designed to measure diffuse emission in the extreme ultraviolet (350–1100 Å). This new design provides an unprecedented 4–5 Å spectral resolution and 200 photons/sec/cm²/sr sensitivity after only 100 hours of observations. One of the goals of this project is to search for spectral lines of highly ionized species from the high temperature component (10⁵ – 10⁶ K) of the interstellar medium that fills the Local Bubble. It is expected that EURD will detect lines due to a thermalized hot component of the interstellar medium, and it will also provide critical diagnostics of the physical properties of this gas. With EURD data we could also detect a spectral line due to the decay of massive neutrinos as well as study oxygen lines from the upper atmosphere airglow. EURD is on board the Spanish MINISAT-01 satellite.

Based on the development and utilization of the Espectrógrafo Ultravioleta de Radiación Difusa, a collaboration of the Spanish Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial and the Center for EUV Astrophysics, University of California, Berkeley.