Science Coordination Office for Astrophysical Research in Antarctica

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This award supports a Science Coordination Office for Astrophysical Research in Antarctica (SCOARA) to facilitate an intellectual partnership between the NSF and scientific community with the goal of achieving maximum quality and efficiency for the support of astrophysical research at the U.S. Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. Funds are provided only to facilitate the coordination outlined below, maintain shared scientific equipment, and operate the machine shop to meet the needs of the science projects and the station. No funds are provided for activities that are covered by the individual investigator grants. The SCOARA, comprised of principal investigators involved in cosmology and astrophysics projects at the station, will enable the scientists to work together for: (a) providing community organization, coordination, and expert sharing of scientific support for approved South Pole Dark Sector science projects, (b) outfitting and staffing the shared Dark Sector machine shop, (c) keeping the shared scientific equipment at the Pole in good working order, (d) providing expert science winterover support shared among the projects, (e) conducting weekly teleconferences for Principal Investigators or their designees to address on-going and emerging issues related to the science projects at the Pole, and (f) educating, organizing, and coordinating the community in response to discussions about the limited support resources at the South Pole. With respect to the broader impacts, the proposed Science Coordination Office will focus on fostering, amongst the community, the goal of maintaining worldwide leadership, at the cutting edge of modern science, of the U.S. Antarctic astronomy and astrophysics programs. SCOARA will have an impact on understanding how the worldwide astronomical community might expand observations to sites in Antarctica where observing conditions might be even better than at South Pole. In addition, SCOARA would make it easier for new astrophysics projects (e.g., projects that receive new funding from NSF) to begin their operations at South Pole. This will be especially useful for smaller projects that are often associated with younger investigators. Finally, SCOARA also has obvious advantages for addressing education and public outreach issues, being better suited to organize outreach around a common theme relative to the efforts that individual projects could make separately.