MRI: Development of a Wide-Field Infrared Camera for Robotic Surveys of the Dynamic Astronomical Sky

美国天文学界已经开始系统地监测动态天空，利用机器人望远镜操作、远程成像传感器、大规模计算和机器学习的进步来寻找、分类和揭示瞬态宇宙源。许多调查已经在可见光波长下进行，但传统传感器的高成本阻碍了在红外（IR）方面的类似努力，尽管有强大的科学动机。 国防和监视市场推动的材料增长的进步已经产生了半导体InGaAs的低成本IR传感器，其噪声足够低，可以检测微弱的天文源。Wide-field Infrared Transient Explorer（WINTER）将镶嵌六个高清晰度格式InGaAs探测器，以生产世界上最宽区域的红外相机，并对动态红外天空进行深度机器人调查。除了主要的科学使命，研究周期表中最重的元素是如何在通过引力波识别的碰撞中子星中合成的，WINTER将投入观测时间来支持大数据和物理科学交叉领域的本科生研究和实验室教育。WINTER是一台视场为1.2 x 1.0度的红外摄像机，将安装在专用的1-帕洛玛天文台的机器人望远镜。一个简单的原型表明，热电冷却InGaAs背后的环境温度光学列车产生宽带图像（在0.9-1.7微米）限制从天空中的散粒噪声，而不是传感器噪声。这消除了对低温光学和真空低温恒温器的需求，大大降低了系统成本和复杂性，相对于传统的红外成像仪与碲镉汞传感器。在5年基线调查的每一年，WINTER将监测整个北方天空，深度J=19.2（单次访问）或J=20（合并），并向公众发布校准图像和瞬态警报。WINTER对Advanced LIGO整个视界上kilonovae的r过程增强喷出物的发射敏感，并将自动中断其天空调查，以寻找引力波事件的各向同性红外对应物。 WINTER的红外探测能力对中子星星合并和中子星-黑洞合并的辐射具有独特的敏感性，与视角、不透明度、质量比和剩余寿命无关。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 US astronomical community has embarked on a systematic effort to monitor the dynamic sky, leveraging advances in robotic telescope operation, remote-imaging sensors, large-scale computing and machine learning to find, classify, and unveil transient cosmic sources. Numerous surveys already operate at visible wavelengths, but the high cost of conventional sensors has discouraged similar efforts in the infrared (IR), despite strong scientific motivation. Advances in material growth driven by the defense and surveillance markets have yielded lower-cost IR sensors of the semiconductor InGaAs, with sufficiently low noise to detect faint astronomical sources. The Wide-field Infrared Transient Explorer (WINTER) will mosaic six High Definition format InGaAs detectors to produce the world's widest-area IR camera and conduct a deep robotic survey of the dynamic infrared sky. In addition to its primary science mission, studying how the heaviest elements of the periodic table are synthesized in colliding neutron stars identified via gravitational waves, WINTER will devote observing time to support undergraduate research and laboratory education at the intersection of Big Data and the physical sciences.WINTER is an infrared camera with a 1.2 x 1.0 degree field of view that will be installed on a dedicated 1-meter robotic telescope at Palomar Observatory. A simple prototype shows that thermo-electrically cooled InGaAs behind an ambient temperature optical train yields broadband images (at 0.9-1.7 microns) limited by shot noise from the sky, rather than sensor noise. This removes the requirement for cryogenic optics and vacuum cryostats, greatly reducing system cost and complexity relative to traditional IR imagers with HgCdTe sensors. During each year of a 5-year baseline survey, WINTER will monitor the entire Northern sky to a depth of J=19.2 (single visit), or J=20 (combined), and release calibrated images and transient alerts to the public. WINTER is sensitive to emission from the r-process enhanced ejecta of kilonovae over the full horizon of Advanced LIGO, and will autonomously interrupt its sky survey to search for the isotropic infrared counterparts of gravitational-wave events. WINTER's IR capability is uniquely sensitive to emission from both binary neutron star mergers and neutron star-black hole mergers independent of viewing angle, opacity, mass ratio and remnant lifetime.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.