Exploring the Time-Varying Universe at Millimeter Wavelengths with the South Pole Telescope

用南极望远镜探索毫米波长的时变宇宙

• 批准号: 1716965
• 负责人: Nathan Whitehorn
• 金额: $ 23.21万
• 依托单位: University of California-Los Angeles
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-01-15 至 2020-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1716965&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Exploring; Time; Varying; Universe; Millimeter

Telescopes designed for observing signals made by the Cosmic Microwave Background also provide a unique opportunity for long-term monitoring of large areas of the sky for variable astronomical sources at millimeter-sized wavelengths. This is a spectral region of observational astronomy now largely unexplored. The investigators will use the South Pole Telescope to conduct the first systematic survey of the sky in the millimeter band. This survey could reach sensitivities that would allow the first detections of Gamma Ray Bursts made by the first generation of stars during very early stages of the development of the universe. It will also produce a wealth of detailed data on variability within active galaxies with time, and has the capability of detecting very fast radio bursts. These data will generate many opportunities for university undergraduate students to work with a large, novel, and ready-to-analyze data set. This program uses the South Pole Telescope to conduct a real-time survey of 2500 square degrees of sky in the 90-220 GHz band for transient and variable sources, targeting in particular gamma ray burst afterglows, active galaxies, and fast radio bursts. Using the 3rd-generation receiver (to be deployed in the 2016-2017 austral summer), this survey will cover 6% of the sky hourly over a period of two years. This has the sensitivity potential to make the first detections of gamma-ray burst afterglows unassociated with a gamma-ray trigger. This program will improve on the existing best sensitivity in this spectral range by a factor of 50, address a number of open questions in high-energy astrophysics, and firmly establish Cosmic Microwave Background telescopes as tools for time-domain astronomy.

为观测宇宙微波背景辐射信号而设计的望远镜也提供了一个独特的机会，可以长期监测大面积天空中毫米级波长的可变天文源。 这是观测天文学的一个光谱区域，目前基本上尚未探索。研究人员将使用南极望远镜在毫米波段对天空进行首次系统调查。这一调查可以达到的敏感度，将允许第一次探测伽马射线爆发的第一代恒星在非常早期的宇宙发展阶段。 它还将产生大量关于活动星系随时间变化的详细数据，并有能力探测非常快的无线电爆发。这些数据将为大学本科生提供许多机会，使他们能够使用大型，新颖且易于分析的数据集。该方案利用南极望远镜在90-220 GHz波段对2 500平方度的天空进行实时观测，以寻找瞬态和可变源，特别是伽马射线爆发余辉、活动星系和快速射电爆发。使用第三代接收器（将于2016-2017年夏季部署），这项调查将在两年的时间内每小时覆盖6%的天空。 这具有灵敏度潜力，可以使首次检测到的伽马射线爆发余辉与伽马射线触发无关。该计划将在该光谱范围内现有的最佳灵敏度提高50倍，解决高能天体物理学中的一些悬而未决的问题，并牢固地建立宇宙微波背景望远镜作为时域天文学的工具。