SIAMOIS: a Doppler asteroseismometer for Dome C

¹ LESIA, CNRS UMR 8109, Observatoire de Paris, 92195 Meudon Cedex, France
² IAP, CNRS UMR, 98 Bld. Arago, 75014 Paris, France

Corresponding author: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Abstract

The photometric instruments in space (most, corot) are going to open new insights on the knowledge of stellar interiors. However, ground-based asteroseismic observations remain justified as they can bring complementary velocity measurements, and allow the study of much more targets. A competitive instrument must make it possible the observation of a representative set of solar-like stars with magnitude down to 5, and a velocity precision as low as a few cm s^-1 after 5 nights behind a 2-m class telescope. The siamois project based on a Fourier interferometer has emerged as a suitable solution to fulfil the specifications for a ground-based asteroseismic network. The photon noise limited performances have been examined and compared to those of a grating spectrometer (Mosser et al.  2003) showing that this type of instrument can reach the required specifications. With a design based on a monolithic interferometer, with a compact instrument easy to set up, to operate remotely with a limited data-flow, it can fit well the harsh conditions of Dome C. Main advantage, a single unit is needed due to the circumpolar position of the targets for the Doppler detection of stellar oscillations on solar-type stars. As a test bed, siamois could be put on 0.8-m class telescope like irait  (Busso et al.   these proceedings).