SAGACE: the Spectroscopic Active Galaxies And Clusters Explorer
Bernardis, P D E ; Bagliani, D ; Bardi, A ; ...Colafrancesco, S ; ...Giommi, P ; et al.
Jan - 2010
Book Title : Proc. of the 12th Marcel Grossmann Meeting on General Relativity, Paris 12-18 July 2009

type: Book Section

Abstract
The SAGACE experiment consists of a mm/sub-mm telescope wit h a 3-m diameter pri- mary mirror, coupled to a cryogenic multi-beam differential spectrometer. SAGACE ex- plores the sky in the 100-760 GHz frequency range, using four diffraction-limited bolome- ter arrays. The instrument is designed to perform spectrosc opic surveys of the Sunyaev- Zeldovich effects of thousands of galaxy clusters, of the spe ctral energy distribution of active galactic nuclei, and of the [CII] line of a thousand ga laxies in the redshift desert. In 2008 a full phase-A study for a national small mission was c ompleted and delivered to the Italian Space Agency (ASI). We have shown that taking adv antage of the differential operation of the Fourier Transform Spectrometer, this ambi tious instrument can operate from a Molniya orbit, and can be built and operated within the tight budget of a small mission.

keywords : Clusters of Galaxies,Cosmic M,Cosmology,Early Galaxies,Space Experiments,Spectrometers,ground,icrowave Back-