Astronomy with the BIMA Array

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AST-96-13998. University of California at Berkeley. PI: - Blitz AST-96-13999. University of Illinois. PI: - E. Snyder AST-96-13716. University of Maryland. PI: - S. Vogel Astronomy with the BIMA Array The Berkeley-Illinois-Maryland Array (BIMA) is a millimeter-wave interferometer presently made up of 9 six-meter diameter antennas; at least two other antennas will be added to the array during the next 5 years. located at Berkeley's Hat Creek Radio Observatory, BIMA was jointly capitalized and is jointly operated by the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Illinois and the University of Maryland through a combination of NSF and State funding. These awards are for identical proposals submitted simultaneously by each institution, and support astronomical research, technological development and student training carried out at the BIMA array. Astronomical research at BIMA includes high resolution studies of solar system objects, stellar envelopes, star-forming regions in the Galaxy, and molecular clouds in external galaxies. Notable accomplishments during the past three years at BIMA include expansion from 6 to 9 elements, and the extension of the array baselines to provide angular resolutions better than 0.5 arcsecond. These technical advancements permitted BIMA scientists to obtain the first resolved image of a young circumstellar disk, and to discover a molecular bar at the core of the Seyfert galaxy NGC 1068, and to confirm the discovery of interstellar acetic acid. Scientific plans under the new award will focus heavily on exploiting the recently-achieved higher speed and resolution of the array. In the technical domain, BIMA staff will concentrate attempting to use total power fluctuations to remove the phase fluctuations caused by the atmosphere when operating over long baselines.