Probing the Magnetic Field of the Milky Way with CHIME

用 CHIME 探测银河系磁场

• 批准号: RGPIN-2017-04128
• 负责人: Landecker, Thomas
• 金额: $ 2.19万
• 依托单位: University of Calgary
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2019-01-01 至 2020-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=683587
• 关键词: Probing; Magnetic; Field; Milky; Way

CHIME, one of the largest radio telescopes in the world, is now being built in Canada by three Canadian universities, UBC, Toronto, and McGill, at the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory (DRAO) near Penticton, British Columbia. CHIME will look back in time to an earlier epoch of our Universe, to a time when Dark Energy began to influence the expansion. By charting the distribution of matter in galaxies CHIME will trace out four billion years in the history of the Universe. A second major task for CHIME is to search for Fast Radio Bursts, mysterious flashes of radio light that last only thousandths of a second and come from very far away. They seem to be tracers of very high-energy events, perhaps explosions, far beyond our Milky Way. CHIME will carry out these tasks simultaneously, with two computer signal processors analyzing the same stream of data. This proposal adds a third scientific stream - the study of the Milky Way galaxy in which we live. CHIME will receive radio energy from the Milky Way galaxy every moment of every day. The local signals are almost a nuisance for CHIME's first two purposes, but there is no way to switch them off or to eliminate them from the data stream. The funds awarded here will be used to support graduate students, pursuing Masters degrees and Doctorates, who will analyze the Milky Way signal looking for a description of the magnetic field between the stars of the Milky Way.******The Milky Way is a galaxy, comprised of 100 billion stars, our Sun just a middle-of-the-road member of this ensemble. Thanks to radio astronomy, the space between the stars, once thought to be nearly empty, is known to be home to a tenuous but complex medium of gas, in atomic and molecular form, which has very cold regions intermingled with very hot regions. Mixed in is a dust of microscopic particles, the debris of dead stars. The whole is threaded by magnetic energy: magnetic field, just one millionth of the field that swings compass needles here on Earth, plays a significant role in the never-ending cycle of star birth and star death. Stars form from the interstellar material, and, late in their lives, return radiation and matter to it. The interstellar magnetic field, weak as it is, plays a big role in all these processes. Data from CHIME will join data from other large radio telescopes around the world in a quest to map interstellar magnetic fields and to understand their role in the "ecosystem" of the Milky Way.*****

CHIME是世界上最大的射电望远镜之一，目前正在由加拿大的三所大学UBC、多伦多和麦吉尔在不列颠哥伦比亚省彭蒂克顿附近的自治领射电天体物理观测站（DRAO）建造。CHIME将回顾我们宇宙的早期时代，即暗能量开始影响膨胀的时代。通过绘制星系中物质的分布图，CHIME将追溯宇宙历史中的40亿年。CHIME的第二个主要任务是寻找快速无线电爆发，这是一种神秘的无线电闪光，持续时间只有千分之一秒，来自非常遥远的地方。它们似乎是非常高能量事件的示踪剂，也许是爆炸，远远超出了我们的银河系。CHIME将同时执行这些任务，两个计算机信号处理器分析同一数据流。这项提议增加了第三个科学流--对我们所生活的银河系的研究。CHIME将每天每时每刻接收来自银河系的无线电能量。本地信号对于CHIME的前两个目的来说几乎是一个麻烦，但是没有办法将它们关闭或从数据流中消除它们。这里授予的资金将用于支持研究生，攻读硕士学位和博士学位，他们将分析银河系信号，寻找银河系恒星之间磁场的描述。银河系是一个由1000亿颗恒星组成的星系，我们的太阳只是这个星系团的中间成员。多亏了射电天文学，曾经被认为几乎是空的恒星之间的空间被认为是一种稀薄但复杂的气体介质的家园，以原子和分子的形式存在，其中有非常冷的区域与非常热的区域混合。其中混合着一种由微观粒子组成的尘埃，即死亡恒星的残骸。整个宇宙都被磁能贯穿：磁场，只是地球上罗盘指针摆动的磁场的百万分之一，在星星诞生和星星死亡的永无止境的循环中扮演着重要的角色。恒星是由星际物质形成的，在其生命的后期，恒星向星际物质返回辐射和物质。星际磁场虽然很弱，但在所有这些过程中起着重要作用。来自CHIME的数据将与世界各地其他大型射电望远镜的数据一起，以绘制星际磁场并了解它们在银河系“生态系统”中的作用。