The Atacama Large Aperture Submillimetre Telescope: key science drivers
The Atacama Large Aperture Submillimetre Telescope: key science drivers
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DOI：
10.1117/12.2627505
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发表时间：
2022-07
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通讯作者：
J. Ramasawmy;P. Klaassen;C. Cicone;T. Mroczkowski;Chian-Chou Chen;T. Cornish;E. da Cunha;E. Hatziminaoglou;D. Johnstone;Daizhong Liu;Y. Perrott;A. Schimek;T. Stanke;S. Wedemeyer
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作者：
J. Ramasawmy;P. Klaassen;C. Cicone;T. Mroczkowski;Chian-Chou Chen;T. Cornish;E. da Cunha;E. Hatziminaoglou;D. Johnstone;Daizhong Liu;Y. Perrott;A. Schimek;T. Stanke;S. Wedemeyer
阿塔卡马大孔径亚毫米望远镜（AtLAST）是一个50米级单碟望远镜的概念，它将提供高灵敏度，快速绘制（亚）毫米天空。预计将由可再生能源提供动力，并将于21世纪30年代在阿塔卡马沙漠建造，AtLAST的最多六台最先进的仪器将利用其大视场和高吞吐量的优势，对目前设施无法实现的微弱大规模发射进行有效的连续光谱和光谱观测。AtLAST设计研究项目目前由地平线2020赠款支持，旨在研究未来AtLAST天文台的管理，望远镜设计，选址，望远镜操作，可持续能源供应和科学驱动因素。有了量化和具体的科学目标，我们就可以开始对望远镜及其仪器进行技术规范。作为这一过程的第一步，我们与全球（亚）毫米天体物理学界就潜在的AtLAST科学进行了磋商。此次磋商涉及来自22个国家的近100名科学家，由此产生的28个用例表明了这种高通量设施可以实现的变革性科学的广度：从探索我们太阳系中彗星的生命前分子化学，探测我们自己和遥远星系的环星系介质中延伸的扩散冷气体，详细测量热，动力学和相对论Sunyaev-Zeldovich效应和大尺度结构的映射。这些科学案例已经定义了AtLAST仪器的一些核心要求：宽带宽，多色观测，高光谱分辨率，快速绘图和大视场。计划在当前欧盟资助的项目过程中进一步完善这些，从而对社区提供下一代亚毫米观测设施所需的望远镜和仪器要求进行详细的案例研究。
The Atacama Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (AtLAST) is a concept for a 50m class single-dish telescope that will provide high sensitivity, fast mapping of the (sub-)millimeter sky. Expected to be powered by renewable energy sources, and to be constructed in the Atacama desert in the 2030s, AtLAST’s suite of up to six stateof-the-art instruments will take advantage of its large field of view and high throughput to deliver efficient continuum and spectroscopic observations of the faint, large-scale emission that eludes current facilities. The AtLAST design study project is currently supported by a Horizon 2020 grant aimed at studying the governance, telescope design, site selection, telescope operations, sustainable energy supply, and science drivers of the future AtLAST observatory. With quantified and specific science goals, we can begin to place technical specifications on the telescope and its instrumentation. As a first step in this process, we conducted a consultation on potential AtLAST science with the global (sub-)millimeter astrophysics community. The consultation involved nearly 100 scientists based in 22 countries, and the resulting 28 use cases indicate the breadth of transformational science that such a high-throughput facility could make possible: from exploring the prebiotic molecular chemistry of comets in our own Solar System, detecting the extended, diffuse cold gas in the circumgalactic medium of both our own and distant galaxies, to detailed measurements of the thermal, kinetic, and relativistic Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect and mapping of large-scale structure. Already these science cases define some core requirements for AtLAST’s instrumentation: wide bandwidths, multichroic observations, high spectral resolution, fast mapping and a large field of view. Further refinement of these is planned over the course of the current EU-funded project, resulting in detailed case studies of the telescope and instrumentation requirements needed by the community to deliver a next-generation submillimeter observing facility.