Feasibility study of an image slicer for future space application

This communication presents the feasibility study of an image slicer for future space missions, especially for the integral field unit (IFU) of the SUVIT (Solar UV-Visible-IR telescope) spectro-polarimeter on board the Japanese-led solar space mission Solar-C as a backup option. The MuSICa (Multi-Slit Image slicer based on collimator-Camera) image slicer concept, originally developed for the European Solar Telescope, has been adapted to the SUVIT requirements. The IFU will reorganizes a 2-D field of view of 10 x 10 arcsec2 into three slits of 0.18 arcsec width by 185.12 arcsec length using flat slicer mirrors of 100 μm width. The layout of MuSICa for Solar-C is telecentric and offers an optical quality limited by diffraction. The entrance for the SUVIT spectro-polarimeter is composed by the three IFU slits and one ordinal long slit to study, using high resolution spectro-polarimetry, the solar atmosphere (Photosphere and Chromosphere) within a spectral range between 520 nm (optionally 280 nm) and 1,100 nm