Harmoni: The First Light Integral Field Spectrograph For The E-Elt

HARMONI is a visible and near-infrared (0.47 to 2.45 mu m) integral field spectrometer, providing the E-ELT's core spectroscopic capability, over a range of resolving powers from R (equivalent to lambda/Delta lambda)similar to 500 to R similar to 20000. The instrument provides simultaneous spectra of similar to 32000 spaxels at visible and near-IR wavelengths, arranged in a root 2:1 aspect ratio contiguous field. HARMONI is conceived as a workhorse instrument, addressing many of the E-ELT's key science cases, and will exploit the E-ELT's scientific potential in its early years, starting at first light. HARMONI provides a range of spatial pixel (spaxel) scales and spectral resolving powers, which permit the user to optimally configure the instrument for a wide range of science programs; from ultra-sensitive to diffraction limited, spatially resolved, physical (via morphology), chemical (via abundances and line ratios) and kinematic (via line-of-sight velocities) studies of astrophysical sources.Recently, the HARMONI design has undergone substantial changes due to significant modifications to the interface with the telescope and the architecture of the E-ELT Nasmyth platform. We present an overview of the capabilities of HARMONI, and of its design from a functional and performance viewpoint.