WASP: wideband spectrometer for heterodyne spectroscopy

We have developed a novel wideband spectrometer for astronomical heterodyne spectroscopy. The spectrometer, WASP, has 3250 MHz bandwidth and 33 MHz resolution, a combination well matched to submillimeter spectroscopy of high-redshift objects, interacting galaxies, active galactic nuclei, and planetary atmospheres. The spectrometer is an autocorrelation spectrometer with analog microwave integrated circuit multipliers separated by microstripline transmission line delays. Our prototype spectrometer is compact, requires little power (75 W), and integrates stably for many hours.