US Community Access to the Large Millimeter Telescope

美国社区使用大型毫米波望远镜

• 批准号: 2034318
• 负责人: Frederic Schloerb
• 金额: $ 500万
• 依托单位: University of Massachusetts Amherst
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-10-01 至 2024-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2034318&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: US; Community; Access; Large; Millimeter

Astronomical observations of celestial sources at millimeter wavelengths address a broad range of important scientific questions. The United States has an active community of astronomers with strong interests in pursuing this research, creating a need for access to world-class telescopes for millimeter-wave astronomy. This project will provide the US community with open access to 15% of the scientific observing time on a 50m-diameter, millimeter-wave telescope: the Large Millimeter Telescope Alfonso Serrano (LMT). The LMT was constructed in a collaboration between the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the country of Mexico, who shared the capital cost of building the telescope and currently share in the scientific use of the facility. US astronomer access to comparable facilities, located elsewhere in the world, has been extremely limited, so access to the LMT provides a significant new opportunity for work in diverse areas such as studies of galactic evolution, time variable objects, and the formation of stars in the Milky Way and other nearby galaxies. LMT is a project carried out in a binational collaboration with the country of Mexico, and the opportunities presented by open access to the telescope are expected to boost scientific contact and collaborations between the United States and its southern neighbor. In addition, the educational institutions involved in the program, University of Massachusetts Amherst, University of Maryland College Park, and the Instituto Nacional de Astrofisica, Optica, y Electronica in Mexico, have strong traditions of engaging students and training the next generation of scientists through hands-on work and direct participation in the project.The primary objective of this program is to provide 15% of the scientific observing time on the LMT to the US Community. Projects will be selected for observing time based on the results of an open, peer-reviewed, proposal competition. Observations for open access projects will be carried out by trained LMT observers and data products will be provided to open access users of the facility. The LMT has state-of-the-art instruments operating in the atmospheric windows between wavelengths of 4 mm and 0.85 mm and has the largest single-dish effective area in the world in the ALMA Bands 4-6. The new TolTEC instrument, a multi-wavelength continuum camera and polarimeter with 7,000 pixels, will complete surveys of the sky thousands of times faster than ALMA. Spectral line mapping surveys will also be obtained with surface brightness sensitivity and speeds exceeding ALMA capabilities, and unbiased spectroscopic surveys of molecular gas in the high redshift universe will be conducted. The LMT presents opportunities to carry out both “stand alone” science as well as playing an important complementary role to ALMA by providing data sets that will enhance the scientific return from ALMA for the US Community.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.

在毫米波长上对天体源进行天文观测可以解决一系列重要的科学问题。美国有一个活跃的天文学家社区，他们对从事这项研究有着浓厚的兴趣，因此需要获得世界级的毫米波天文望远镜。该项目将向美国社区开放使用50米直径毫米波望远镜的15%的科学观测时间：大型毫米波望远镜阿方索塞拉诺（LMT）。LMT是由马萨诸塞州阿默斯特大学和墨西哥国家合作建造的，他们分担了建造望远镜的资本成本，目前也分担了该设施的科学使用。美国天文学家访问类似的设施，位于世界其他地方，一直非常有限，所以访问LMT提供了一个重要的新机会，在不同领域的工作，如银河系演化，时变天体的研究，以及在银河系和其他附近星系的恒星的形成。 LMT是一个与墨西哥国家合作开展的项目，开放使用望远镜所带来的机会预计将促进美国与其南部邻国之间的科学联系和合作。此外，参与该计划的教育机构，马萨诸塞州阿默斯特大学，马里兰州大学帕克分校和墨西哥国家天文、光学和电子研究所，我们有很强的传统，通过动手工作和直接参与项目来吸引学生和培养下一代科学家。该计划的主要目标是提供15%的向美国社区提供LMT的科学观测时间。将根据公开的、同行评审的提案竞赛结果选择项目进行观察。开放获取项目的观测将由经过培训的LMT观测员进行，数据产品将提供给该设施的开放获取用户。LMT拥有在4毫米和0.85毫米波长之间的大气窗口中运行的最先进的仪器，并在阿尔马波段4-6中拥有世界上最大的单碟有效面积。新的TolTEC仪器是一个多波长连续照相机和7,000像素的偏振计，它将比阿尔马快数千倍地完成对天空的调查。还将进行光谱线测绘，其表面亮度灵敏度和速度将超过阿尔马的能力，并将对高红移宇宙中的分子气体进行无偏光谱测绘。LMT提供了开展“独立”科学的机会，并通过提供将提高阿尔马对美国社区的科学回报的数据集，对阿尔马发挥重要的补充作用。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。