The Mid-infrared Instrument for JWST and Its In-flight Performance
Gillian Wright, G. H. Rieke, Alistair Glasse, Michael E. Ressler, M. García-Marín, Jonathan Aguilar, Stacey Alberts, Javier Álvarez-Márquez, Ioannis Argyriou, Kimberly C. Banks, Pierre Baudoz, A. Boccaletti, P. Bouchet, J. Bouwman, Bernard R. Brandl, David Breda, Stacey N. Bright, Steven Cale, L. Colina, Christophe Cossou, A. Coulais, Misty Cracraft, W. De Meester, D. Dicken, Michael Engesser, M. Etxaluze, Ori D. Fox, S. D. Friedman, Henry Fu, Danny Gasman, Andras Gáspár, R. Gastaud, Vincent Geers, Adrian M. Glauser, Karl D. Gordon, Thomas P. Greene, T. R. Greve, Timothy Grundy, M. Güdel, P. Guillard, Peter Haderlein, Ryan Hashimoto, Thomas Henning, Dean C. Hines, Bryan J. Holler, Örs Hunor Detre, Amir Jahromi, Bryan James, Olivia Jones, K. Justtanont, Patrick Kavanagh, Sarah Kendrew, Pamela Klaassen, O. Krause, Á. Labiano, Pierre-Olivier Lagage, Scott D. Lambros, Kirsten L. Larson, David R. Law, David Lee, Mattia Libralato, Jose Lorenzo Alverez, M. Meixner, J. Morrison, Migo Mueller, Katherine T. Murray, Matthew Mycroft, Richard Myers, Omnarayani Nayak, B. J. Naylor, Bryony Nickson, A. Noriega‐Crespo, Göran Östlin, Brian O’Sullivan, Richard Ottens, Polychronis Patapis, Konstantin Penanen, Martin Pietraszkiewicz, T. P. Ray, Michael W. Regan, Anthony Roteliuk, P. Royer, Piyal Samara-Ratna, Bridget Samuelson, Beth A. Sargent, Silvia Scheithauer, Analyn Schneider, J. Schreiber, Bryan Shaughnessy, Evan Sheehan, Irene Shivaei, G. C. Sloan, László Tamás, Kelly Teague, Tea Temim, Tuomo Tikkanen, Samuel Tustain, E. F. van Dishoeck, B. Vandenbussche, M. Weilert
Abstract
Abstract The Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) extends the reach of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to 28.5 μ m. It provides subarcsecond-resolution imaging, high sensitivity coronagraphy, and spectroscopy at resolutions of λ /Δ λ ∼ 100–3500, with the high-resolution mode employing an integral field unit to provide spatial data cubes. The resulting broad suite of capabilities will enable huge advances in studies over this wavelength range. This overview describes the history of acquiring this capability for JWST. It discusses the basic attributes of the instrument optics, the detector arrays, and the cryocooler that keeps everything at approximately 7 K. It gives a short description of the data pipeline and of the instrument performance demonstrated during JWST commissioning. The bottom line is that the telescope and MIRI are both operating to the standards set by pre-launch predictions, and all of the MIRI capabilities are operating at, or even a bit better than, the level that had been expected. The paper is also designed to act as a roadmap to more detailed papers on different aspects of MIRI.