Dr. Hwihyun Kim Profile

Dr. Hwihyun Kim

Instrumentation Program Scientist at Gemini Observatory/NSF's NOIRLab

Area of Expertise:

NIR Spectrograph , Commissioning , Project management , Science operations , Research and development

Dr. Hwihyun Kim is Instrumentation Program Scientist at International Gemini Observatory/NSF National Optical-Infrared Research Laboratory in Tucson, AZ. She commissioned IGRINS (Immersion GRating INfrared Spectrometer) at 2.7m HJS Telescope at McDonald Observatory, 4m DCT at Lowell Observatory, and 8m Gemini South Telescope, and supported IGRINS science operations at GS. She is a Project Manager and Technical Representative of IGRINS-2, an upgraded version of IGRINS and a new facility instrument at Gemini North. She manages Gemini Visiting Instrument Program (VIP) and support PIs and their instrument teams.

Her research focuses on resolved stellar populations in nearby galaxies using HST and JWST data. She is a member of LEGUS and PHANGS collaborations.

Proceedings Article | 7 September 2022 Poster + Presentation + Paper

Gemini North Adaptive Optics (GNAO) facility overview and status updates

Gaetano Sivo, Julia Scharwächter, Manuel Lazo, Célia Blain, Stephen Goodsell, Marcos van Dam, Martin Tschimmel, Henry Roe, Jennifer Lotz, Kim Tomassino-Reed, William Rambold, Courtney Raich, Ricardo Cardenes, Angelic Ebbers, Tim Gaggstatter, Pedro Gigoux, Thomas Schneider, Charles Cavedoni, Stacy Kang, Stanislas Karewicz, Heather Carr, Jesse Ball, Paul Hirst, Emmanuel Chirre, John White, Lindsay Magill, Molly Grogan, Anne Jordan, Suresh Sivanandam, Masen Lamb, Adam Muzzin, Eduardo Marin, Scott Chapman, Jennifer Dunn, Dan Kerley, Jean-Pierre Véran, Morten Andersen, Franck Marchis, Ruben Diaz, John Blakeslee, Michael Pierce, Rodrigo Carrasco, Hwyhyun Kim, Anja Feldmeier-Krause, Alan McConnachie, James Jee, Wesley Fraser, Mark Ammons, Christopher Packham, John Bally, Trent Dupuy, Daniel Huber, Marie Lemoine-Busserole, Thomas Puzia, Paolo Turri, Chadwick Trujillo, Janice Lee

Proceedings Volume 12185, 1218536 (2022) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2629479

KEYWORDS: Adaptive optics, Gemini Observatory, Stars, Control systems, James Webb Space Telescope, Laser guide stars, Astronomy, Spectroscopy, Galactic astronomy, Spectrographs

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Proceedings Article | 29 August 2022 Poster + Paper

Design and development of the IGRINS-2 control software as a facility instrument of the Gemini observatory

Hye-In Lee, Francisco Ramos, Pablo Prado, Hwihyun Kim, Heeyoung Oh, Chan Park, Ueejeong Jeong, Moo-Young Chun, Jae-Joon Lee, Young Sam Yu, Sungho Lee, Sanghyuk Kim, Jae Sok Oh, Yunjong Kim, In-Soo Yuk

Proceedings Volume 12189, 121891Y (2022) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2628852

KEYWORDS: Gemini Observatory, Control systems, Software development, Telescopes, Infrared telescopes, Infrared spectroscopy

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Proceedings Article | 29 August 2022 Presentation + Paper

Current and future instrumentation at Gemini Observatory

Ruben Diaz, Stephen Goodsell, Paul Hirst, Hwihyun Kim, Scot Kleinman

Proceedings Volume 12184, 1218406 (2022) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2630481

KEYWORDS: Gemini Observatory, Adaptive optics, Spectrographs, Telescopes, Spatial resolution, Near infrared, Fourier transforms, Astronomy, Spectroscopes, Gemini Planet Imager

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Proceedings Article | 25 August 2022 Presentation + Paper

Gemini visiting instrument program

Hwihyun Kim, Alison Peck, Ruben Diaz, Andrew Adamson, Scot Kleinman

Proceedings Volume 12186, 121861C (2022) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2630666

KEYWORDS: Gemini Observatory, Telescopes, Spectrographs, Spectroscopy, Polarimetry, Adaptive optics, Speckle, Observatories, Infrared spectroscopy, Stars

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Proceedings Article | 3 January 2020 Paper

GNAO: an MCAO facility for Gemini North

Gaetano Sivo, David Palmer, Julia Scahrwächter, Morten Andersen, Natalie Provost, Eduardo Marin, Marcos van Dam, Brian Chinn, Emmanuel Chirre, Charles Cavedoni, Thomas Schneider, Stacy Kang, Paul Hirst, William Rambold, Angelic Ebbers, Pedro Gigoux, Laure Catala, Thomas Hayward, John Blakeslee, Henry Roe, Jennifer Lotz, Scot Kleinman, Suresh Sivanandam, Anja Krause, Mark Ammons, Chadwick Trujillo, Chris Packham, Franck Marchis, Julian Christou, James Jee, John Bally, Mike Pierce, Thomas Puzia, Paolo Turri, Hwihyun Kim, Meg Schwamb, Trent Dupuy, Ruben Diaz, Rodrigo Carrasco, Benoit Neichel, Carlos Correia, Eric Steinbring, François Rigaut, Jean-Pierre Véran, Mark Chun, Masen Lamb, Scott Chapman, Simone Esposito, Thierry Fusco

Proceedings Volume 11203, 112030N (2020) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2539706

KEYWORDS: Gemini Observatory, Adaptive optics, Telescopes, Astronomy, Laser guide stars, Stars, Observatories, Imaging systems, Diffraction, Spatial resolution

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Proceedings Article | 6 July 2018 Presentation + Paper

IGRINS at the Discovery Channel Telescope and Gemini South

Gregory Mace, Kimberly Sokal, Jae-Joon Lee, Heeyoung Oh, Chan Park, Hanshin Lee, John Good, Phillip MacQueen, Jae Sok Oh, Kyle Kaplan , Ben Kidder, Moo-Young Chun, In-Soo Yuk , Ueejeong Jeong, Soojong Pak, Kang-Min Kim, Jakyoung Nah, Sungho Lee, Young-Sam Yu, Narae Hwang, Byeong-Gon Park, Hwihyun Kim, Brian Chinn, Alison Peck, Ruben Diaz, Rene Rutten, Lisa Prato, George Jacoby, Frank Cornelius, Ben Hardesty, William DeGroff, Edward Dunham, Stephen Levine, Larissa Nofi, Ricardo Lopez-Valdivia, Alycia Weinberger, Daniel Jaffe

Proceedings Volume 10702, 107020Q (2018) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2312345

KEYWORDS: Gemini Observatory, Telescopes, Observatories, Space telescopes, Astronomy, K band, Spectrographs, Stars, Electronics, Infrared spectroscopy

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The Immersion GRating INfrared Spectrometer (IGRINS) was designed for high-throughput with the expectation of being a visitor instrument at progressively larger observing facilities. IGRINS achieves R∼45000 and > 20,000 resolution elements spanning the H and K bands (1.45-2.5μm) by employing a silicon immersion grating as the primary disperser and volume-phase holographic gratings as cross-dispersers. After commissioning on the 2.7 meter Harlan J. Smith Telescope at McDonald Observatory, the instrument had more than 350 scheduled nights in the first two years. With a fixed format echellogram and no cryogenic mechanisms, spectra produced by IGRINS at different facilities have nearly identical formats. The first host facility for IGRINS was Lowell Observatory’s 4.3-meter Discovery Channel Telescope (DCT). For the DCT a three-element fore-optic assembly was designed to be mounted in front of the cryostat window and convert the f/6.1 telescope beam to the f/8.8 beam required by the default IGRINS input optics. The larger collecting area and more reliable pointing and tracking of the DCT improved the faint limit of IGRINS, relative to the McDonald 2.7-meter, by ∼1 magnitude. The Gemini South 8.1-meter telescope was the second facility for IGRINS to visit. The focal ratio for Gemini is f/16, which required a swap of the four-element input optics assembly inside the IGRINS cryostat. At Gemini, observers have access to many southern-sky targets and an additional gain of ∼1.5 magnitudes compared to IGRINS at the DCT. Additional adjustments to IGRINS include instrument mounts for each facility, a glycol cooled electronics rack, and software modifications. Here we present instrument modifications, report on the success and challenges of being a visitor instrument, and highlight the science output of the instrument after four years and 699 nights on sky. The successful design and adaptation of IGRINS for various facilities make it a reliable forerunner for GMTNIRS, which we now anticipate commissioning on one of the 6.5 meter Magellan telescopes prior to the completion of the Giant Magellan Telescope.

Proceedings Article | 3 August 2016 Paper

300 nights of science with IGRINS at McDonald Observatory

Gregory Mace, Hwihyun Kim, Daniel Jaffe, Chan Park, Jae-Joon Lee, Kyle Kaplan, Young Sam Yu, In-Soo Yuk, Moo-Young Chun, Soojong Pak, Kang-Min Kim, Jeong-Eun Lee, Christopher Sneden, Melike Afsar, Michael Pavel, Hanshin Lee, Heeyoung Oh, Ueejeong Jeong, Sunkyung Park, Benjamin Kidder, Hye-In Lee, Huynh Anh Nguyen Le, Jacob McLane, Michael Gully-Santiago, Jae Sok Oh, Sungho Lee, Narae Hwang, Byeong-Gon Park

Proceedings Volume 9908, 99080C (2016) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2232780

KEYWORDS: Telescopes, Infrared spectroscopy, Infrared spectroscopy, Observatories, Stars, Silicon, Spectrographs, Sensors, K band, Electronics, Spectral resolution

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The Immersion Grating Infrared Spectrometer (IGRINS) is a revolutionary instrument that exploits broad spectral coverage at high-resolution in the near-infrared. IGRINS employs a silicon immersion grating as the primary disperser, and volume-phase holographic gratings cross-disperse the H and K bands onto Teledyne Hawaii-2RG arrays. The use of an immersion grating facilitates a compact cryostat while providing simultaneous wavelength coverage from 1.45 - 2.5 μm. There are no cryogenic mechanisms in IGRINS and its high-throughput design maximizes sensitivity. IGRINS on the 2.7 meter Harlan J. Smith Telescope at McDonald Observatory is nearly as sensitive as CRIRES at the 8 meter Very Large Telescope. However, IGRINS at R≈45,000 has more than 30 times the spectral grasp of CRIRES* in a single exposure. Here we summarize the performance of IGRINS from the first 300 nights of science since commissioning in summer 2014. IGRINS observers have targeted solar system objects like Pluto and Ceres, comets, nearby young stars, star forming regions like Taurus and Ophiuchus, the interstellar medium, photo dissociation regions, the Galactic Center, planetary nebulae, galaxy cores and super novae. The rich near-infrared spectra of these objects motivate unique science cases, and provide information on instrument performance. There are more than ten submitted IGRINS papers and dozens more in preparation. With IGRINS on a 2.7m telescope we realize signal-to-noise ratios greater than 100 for K=10.3 magnitude sources in one hour of exposure time. Although IGRINS is Cassegrain mounted, instrument flexure is sub-pixel thanks to the compact design. Detector characteristics and stability have been tested regularly, allowing us to adjust the instrument operation and improve science quality. A wide variety of science programs motivate new tools for analyzing high-resolution spectra including multiplexed spectral extraction, atmospheric model fitting, rotation and radial velocity, unique line identification, and circumstellar disk modeling. Here we discuss details of instrument performance, summarize early science results, and show the characteristics of IGRINS as a versatile near-infrared spectrograph and forerunner of future silicon immersion grating spectrographs like iSHELL² and GMTNIRS.³

Proceedings Article | 8 July 2014 Paper

Design and early performance of IGRINS (Immersion Grating Infrared Spectrometer)

Chan Park, Daniel Jaffe, In-Soo Yuk, Moo-Young Chun, Soojong Pak, Kang-Min Kim, Michael Pavel, Hanshin Lee, Heeyoung Oh, Ueejeong Jeong, Chae Kyung Sim, Hye-In Lee, Huynh Anh Nguyen Le, Joseph Strubhar, Michael Gully-Santiago, Jae Sok Oh, Sang-Mok Cha, Bongkon Moon, Kwijong Park, Cynthia Brooks, Kyeongyeon Ko, Jeong-Yeol Han, Jakyoung Nah, Peter Hill, Sungho Lee, Stuart Barnes, Young Sam Yu, Kyle Kaplan, Gregory Mace, Hwihyun Kim, Jae-Joon Lee, Narae Hwang, Byeong-Gon Park

Proceedings Volume 9147, 91471D (2014) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2056431

KEYWORDS: Sensors, Spectrographs, Cameras, K band, Spectral resolution, Infrared spectroscopy, Cryogenics, Mirrors, Optical design, Telescopes

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