Mid-scale RI-1 (M1:DP): Next Generation Event Horizon Telescope Design

事件视界望远镜（EHT）最近拍摄了第一张黑洞的直接图像，全世界数十亿人都看到了这张图像。科学界和公众都被这一结果所激励。这里资助的项目是一个设计项目，计划大大增强EHT（EHT-II），其中有7-8个额外的望远镜放置在世界各地的位置，旨在最大限度地提高成像速度，动态范围和保真度。这种组合的快得多的快照模式将允许快速跟踪黑洞事件视界附近的变化，从而首次允许创建直接显示极端重力环境动态的电影。更强的成像能力还将解决长期存在的基本问题，例如物质如何以相对论喷流的形式从黑洞中喷出。 更广泛的影响包括国家航空航天博物馆的展览，并培训学生在仪器开发，而不是依赖于现有的大型设施，以形成甚长基线干涉测量（VLBI）阵列，因为现有的EHT已经做了，这个设计方案将考虑工程和小直径的盘，最佳地填补了地球大小的虚拟望远镜，精确定制的科学目标的位置。通过经济有效地使用小型碟形天线，将阵列中的碟形天线数量增加一倍，EHT-II将能够制作超大质量黑洞的第一部实时电影。 墨西哥的大型毫米波望远镜与马萨诸塞州阿默斯特大学合作，将作为高级双频接收器的试验台，该接收器将作为这一设计倡议的一部分开发，该项目得到基金会范围内的中型研究基础设施方案的支持。该项目将由数学和物理科学理事会天文科学处管理。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) recently made the first direct image of a black hole, an image seen by billions of people around the world. Both the scientific community and the general the public were galvanized by this result. The program funded here is a design project to plan a greatly enhanced EHT (EHT-II), one with 7-8 additional telescopes placed around the world in locations designed to maximize imaging speed, dynamic range, and fidelity. The much faster snapshot mode of this combination will allow rapid tracking of changes near the black hole event horizon, allowing for the first time ever the creation of movies directly showing the dynamics of extreme gravity environments. The greater imaging power will also address long-standing fundamental questions such as how matter is blasted away from a black hole in the form of relativistic jets. Broader impacts include a National Air and Space Museum exhibit, and training of students in instrumentation development.Instead of relying on existing large facilities to form the Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) array, as the existing EHT has done, this design program will consider engineering and placement of small-diameter dishes that optimally fill out an Earth sized virtual telescope, tailored precisely for science objectives. By roughly doubling the number of dishes in the array through cost-effective use of small dishes, the EHT-II will be capable of making the first real-time movies of supermassive black holes. The Large Millimeter Telescope in Mexico, in collaboration with the University of Massachusetts Amherst, will serve as a testbed for advanced dual frequency receivers that will be developed as part of this design initiative.This project is supported by the Foundation-wide Mid-scale Research Infrastructure program. The project will be managed by the Division of Astronomical Sciences within the Directorate for Mathematics and Physical Sciences.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.