HERA: Illuminating Our Early Universe

这是一个在南非开发和建造新射电望远镜阵列原型的计划，以测量再电离时代中性氢的发射特征，再电离时代是宇宙历史上第一批恒星、星系和类星体形成时尚未探索的阶段。该项目将在仪器和设施开发方面培训本科生、研究生和博士后研究人员，并将通过与南非的学生交换计划促进国际科学合作。该项目每年暑假将接待3-4名学生，在轮流主办机构从事相关研究和工程问题的研究。其他教育和外展努力包括实习、REUS和社区大学向射电天文学的转移计划。获奖者将现场测试一种新的望远镜设计，并在南非无线电安静的广场千米阵列现场部署37个元素的阵列，使用14米固定指向抛物面天线，工作频率在50至225 MHz之间。这一设计是由最近的一项突破推动的，该突破允许现有仪器消除否则会破坏测量结果的前景发射。探索宇宙黎明和再电离时代是天文学和天体物理学十年调查(2011年《新世界新地平线》)强调的本十年的三个主要科学优先事项之一。

This is a program to develop and build a prototype in South Africa for a new radio telescope array to measure the emission signature of neutral hydrogen from the Epoch of Reionization, the unexplored phase in the history of the universe when the first stars, galaxies, and quasars were formed. The project will train undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers in instrumentation and facility development, and will foster international scientific collaboration through a student exchange program with South Africa. This program will host 3-4 students per summer, working on related research and engineering problems at a rotating host institution. Other education and outreach efforts include internships, REUs, and community college transfer programs to radio astronomy. The awardees will field test a new telescope design and deploy a 37-element array at the radio-quiet Square Kilometer Array site in South Africa, using 14-m fixed-pointing parabolic dishes which will operate between 50 to 225 MHz. The design is driven by a recent breakthrough that allows current instruments to remove foreground emission that would otherwise corrupt the measurements. Exploring the Cosmic Dawn and the Epoch of Reionization is one of the three main science priorities for the current decade highlighted by the Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Survey (New Worlds New Horizons, 2011).