US Community Access to the Large Millimeter Telescope

对毫米波段天体源的天文观测解决了一系列重要的科学问题。美国有一个活跃的天文学家群体，他们对开展这项研究有着浓厚的兴趣，因此需要使用世界级的望远镜进行毫米波天文研究。该项目将向美国社区开放使用直径50米的毫米波望远镜--大毫米望远镜阿方索·塞拉诺(LMT)--15%的科学观测时间。LMT是由马萨诸塞大学阿默斯特分校和墨西哥国家共同建造的，这两个国家分担了建造望远镜的资本成本，目前共享该设施的科学使用。美国天文学家对位于世界其他地方的类似设施的访问极其有限，因此访问LMT为研究星系演化、时变天体以及银河系和其他附近星系中恒星的形成等不同领域的工作提供了一个重要的新机会。LMT是与墨西哥两国合作开展的一个项目，开放使用该望远镜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，如马萨诸塞大学阿默斯特分校、马里兰大学帕克分校和墨西哥的国家天体、光学和电子学研究所，都有通过动手工作和直接参与该项目来吸引学生和培养下一代科学家的强大传统。该计划的主要目标是向美国社区提供15%的LMT科学观测时间。将根据公开的、同行评审的提案竞赛的结果来选择观察时间的项目。开放获取项目的观察将由训练有素的LMT观察员进行，并将向该设施的开放获取用户提供数据产品。LMT拥有在波长4 mm至0.85 mm之间的大气窗口中运行的最先进的仪器，并在ALMA波段4-6拥有世界上最大的单碟式有效面积。新的Toltec仪器是一种具有7000像素的多波长连续相机和偏振器，完成天空测量的速度将比ALMA快数千倍。还将获得表面亮度灵敏度和速度超过ALMA能力的光谱线绘制测量，并将对高红移宇宙中的分子气体进行无偏光谱测量。LMT通过提供数据集为美国社会提供增强ALMA的科学回报的数据集，从而为ALMA提供机会，既可以进行独立的科学研究，又可以发挥重要的补充作用。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.