Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Dec 2006
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006aspc..356...59w&link_type=abstract
Revealing the Molecular Universe: One Antenna is Never Enough ASP Conference Series, Vol. 356, Proceedings of the Conference Hel
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
5
Scientific paper
The Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) is a billion-dollar, international telescope project under construction in northern Chile on a 5-km elevation site at Chajnantor. The excellent atmospheric transmission in the millimeter and sub-millimeter wavelength ranges at that site will allow ALMA to provide detailed images of the sources of the cosmic microwave background and the cosmic far-infrared background radiation near the wavelengths of the two strongest peaks in the spectral energy distribution of the Universe. ALMA's images will contain all of the flux in the imaged field through the use of two parts: (1) the ``12-m Array,'' composed of up to sixty-four 12-m antennas that can be placed on 186 different stations for baselines up to 18 km; and (2) the ``Atacama Compact Array,'' or ACA, that consists of twelve 7-m telescopes placed in compact configurations and four 12-m telescopes for measuring source total power. The angular resolution will be 0.005 arcsec at the shortest planned wavelength of 0.3mm and on the longest baseline. The receivers use superconducting (SIS) mixers that, in combination with the excellent site transparency and the large collecting area, will provide sensitivity at 1mm wavelength of 1 mJy in a few seconds for average atmospheric conditions. This sensitivity is more than two orders of magnitude better than any array operating today. At first light for the ALMA project, the 6 highest priority receiver bands will be installed, each observing both polarizations with bandwidths of 8 GHz.
ALMA is an equal partnership between Europe and North America, in cooperation with the Republic of Chile, and is funded in North America by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) in cooperation with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC-C), and in Europe by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and Spain. In the bilateral project, ALMA construction and operations are led on behalf of North America by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), which is managed by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI), and on behalf of Europe by ESO. In addition, Japan has also entered the ALMA project.
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