Collaborative Research: The CARMA Array

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ABSTRACTAST 0228974The Combined Array for Millimeter Astronomy (CARMA) will merge at a new site two existing telescope arrays currently supported by the Division of Astronomical Science's University Radio Observatories (URO) Program. These are Caltech's Owens Valley Radio Observatory (OVRO) array of six 10.4-meter-diameter telescopes, and the Berkeley Illinois Maryland Association (BIMA) array of nine 6.1-meter-diameter telescopes. CARMA will achieve resolutions as high as 0.2 arcseconds at a wavelength of 1mm and, due to its heterogeneous combination of telescope diameters, will provide excellent imaging on all angular scales. CARMA's sensitivity in the 1 mm band will be an order of magnitude greater than that of the existing arrays due to the lower atmospheric attenuation of the new site (an 8000' plateau in the Inyo Mountains about 15 miles from the current OVRO site), and the merged array's greater collecting area, improved receivers and spectrometer, and adaptive atmospheric phase correction. The new science enabled by CARMA covers a broad range of astronomical topics, including star formation and molecular clouds, studies of external galaxies, cosmological studies using the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect, and the investigation of solar system objects.