SGER: Pre-HEAT: First Submillimeter Site Testing and Astronomical Spectra from Dome A

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This Small Grant for Exploratory Research will allow the participation of a U.S. scientist in the science program being prepared by a Chinese-Australian team of astronomers, and in a traverse from the Antarctic coast to Dome A in the interior. The traverse will be undertaken by the Polar Research Institute of China. The objective of the science program is to measure the submillimeter sky opacity to demonstrate the exceptional conditions of this high altitude site for Terahertz astronomy. This grant will be used to provide instrumentation that will field test key technologies and perform strip maps of the Galactic plane at 660 GHz, amongst the first astrophysical measurements from Dome A. The equipment will be integrated into an Australian-designed autonomously operating research module. No US personnel will accompany the equipment on the traverse.