Astronomical Studies with the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory

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AbstractAST 99-80846. California Institute of Technology. PI: T.G. PhillipsAstronomical Studies with the Caltech Submillimeter ObservatoryThis award supports research, technological development, and student education at the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory (CSO). The CSO consists of a 10.4-meter-diameter, high surface precision antenna located at an altitude of nearly 14,000 feet, just below the summit of Mauna Kea on the island of Hawaii. The CSO's mission is to carry out spectroscopic and continuum observations of astronomical objects in the wavelength range 1mm-350mm; the opacity of the Earth's atmosphere to radiation at these wavelengths is the reason for the observatory's location at high altitude. The observatory was constructed with funds from the NSF during the period 1984-1987. The CSO is presently the only US facility capable of operations throughout the full submillimeter atmospheric window.Using new cameras and other enhanced instrumentation, the CSO is proposing in the next three years to carry out three key projects: (i) detection and study of the interstellar medium in distant and possibly primordial galaxies; (ii) pursuit of high-frequency Sunyaev-Zel'dovich measurements in a large enough galaxy cluster sample to make a meaningful independent measurement of the Hubble constant; and (iii) study of the very earliest stages of star formation in the dense interstellar medium