Joanna Ramasawmy
Gather.town id
BD09
Poster Title
AtLAST: surveying the sky with a next generation sub-millimetre telescope
Institution
UK Astronomy Technology Centre (UKATC)
Abstract (short summary)
AtLAST is a concept for a next generation, 50-meter class single-dish astronomical observatory. Operating at sub-millimetre and millimetre wavelengths, it will deliver a much needed combination of spatial and spectral resolution, with high mapping speeds and sensitivity to large scale structures that current facilities cannot achieve. With a high throughput, 2 degree field of view and a full complement of advanced instrumentation, including highly multiplexed high-resolution spectrometers, continuum cameras and Integral Field Units, AtLAST will have mapping speeds thousands of times greater than any current or planned facility. It will reach confusion limits below L*, allowing for SDSS-style surveys at long wavelengths and enabling a fundamentally new understanding of the sub-millimetre universe at unprecedented depths.
Plain text (extended) Summary
To obtain a complete census of dust in galaxies across cosmic history, we require a high throughput survey facility that can reach high sensitivities and resolutions – a necessary complement to high-resolution interferometric observatories such as ALMA.
The Atacama Large Aperture Submillimetre Telescope (AtLAST) , a concept for a 50 m single dish community facility to be built in the 2030s, will be able to photometrically and spectroscopically survey large areas at high resolutions, pushing the confusion limit to sub-mJy levels and enabling the detections of “normal” (L★) galaxies to very high redshifts.
The potential survey science goals for AtLAST are diverse and include: performing a complete census of star-forming galaxies at high-z to sub-L★ luminosities, revealing the production and evolution of metals in the Universe, as tracked by the dusty ISM, determining the evolution of the co-moving H2 mass density, investigating the astrophysics governing star formation efficiency and ISM chemistry, charting the growth of large scale structure at the epochs of galaxy assembly, and detecting baryonic acoustic oscillations beyond z ≥ 2.
Key features of the telescope include a 50m diameter single dish, two degree field of view, high altitude site at the Chajnantor plateau with similar observing as ALMA, and a wavelength range of 0.3 - 10 mm.
First light instrumentation goals of four instruments to be determined, but potentially a highly multiplexed (~1000 pixel) heterodyne array, a wide field, multi-chroic continuum camera, a wide band IFU and a multi object spectrograph.
The figure shows the SED of a star-forming galaxy redshifted through z = 1 to z = 10, a 2 Gyr timespan from the formation of the first galaxies to cosmic noon. The shaded area shows the wavelength range of AtLAST observations: the wealth of spectral features in this regime will allow the measurement of spectroscopic redshifts for hundreds of thousands of star-forming galaxies. The black point shows the directly detected 870μm continuum emission of an optically-selected Lyman-break galaxy at z = 3 with a UV+IR SFR of
35 M yr−1, and lies in the middle of AtLAST's observing regime: synergies with facilities like LSST will allow multi-wavelength, in-depth study of galaxy physics and chemistry on unprecedented scales.
We are in the first year of a 3-year Horizon2020 funded design study for AtLAST, currently compiling science use cases from the community and open to new collaborators. What transformational science could you do with this facility? Let us know!
Find out more at atlast.uio.no
or email: joanna.ramasawmy@stfc.ac.uk, pamela.klaassen@stfc.ac.uk
or message me, Jo Ramasawmy, during the poster/coffee sessions!
The Atacama Large Aperture Submillimetre Telescope (AtLAST) , a concept for a 50 m single dish community facility to be built in the 2030s, will be able to photometrically and spectroscopically survey large areas at high resolutions, pushing the confusion limit to sub-mJy levels and enabling the detections of “normal” (L★) galaxies to very high redshifts.
The potential survey science goals for AtLAST are diverse and include: performing a complete census of star-forming galaxies at high-z to sub-L★ luminosities, revealing the production and evolution of metals in the Universe, as tracked by the dusty ISM, determining the evolution of the co-moving H2 mass density, investigating the astrophysics governing star formation efficiency and ISM chemistry, charting the growth of large scale structure at the epochs of galaxy assembly, and detecting baryonic acoustic oscillations beyond z ≥ 2.
Key features of the telescope include a 50m diameter single dish, two degree field of view, high altitude site at the Chajnantor plateau with similar observing as ALMA, and a wavelength range of 0.3 - 10 mm.
First light instrumentation goals of four instruments to be determined, but potentially a highly multiplexed (~1000 pixel) heterodyne array, a wide field, multi-chroic continuum camera, a wide band IFU and a multi object spectrograph.
The figure shows the SED of a star-forming galaxy redshifted through z = 1 to z = 10, a 2 Gyr timespan from the formation of the first galaxies to cosmic noon. The shaded area shows the wavelength range of AtLAST observations: the wealth of spectral features in this regime will allow the measurement of spectroscopic redshifts for hundreds of thousands of star-forming galaxies. The black point shows the directly detected 870μm continuum emission of an optically-selected Lyman-break galaxy at z = 3 with a UV+IR SFR of
35 M yr−1, and lies in the middle of AtLAST's observing regime: synergies with facilities like LSST will allow multi-wavelength, in-depth study of galaxy physics and chemistry on unprecedented scales.
We are in the first year of a 3-year Horizon2020 funded design study for AtLAST, currently compiling science use cases from the community and open to new collaborators. What transformational science could you do with this facility? Let us know!
Find out more at atlast.uio.no
or email: joanna.ramasawmy@stfc.ac.uk, pamela.klaassen@stfc.ac.uk
or message me, Jo Ramasawmy, during the poster/coffee sessions!
URL
joanna.ramasawmy@stfc.ac.uk
Poster file