HERA: Illuminating Our Early Universe

HERA：照亮我们的早期宇宙

• 批准号: 1440343
• 负责人: Aaron Parsons
• 金额: $ 214.41万
• 依托单位: University of California-Berkeley
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-09-01 至 2017-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1440343&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: HERA; Illuminating; Our; Early; Universe

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).

这是一项计划，用于在南非开发和建立一个新的射电望远镜阵列，以测量从电离时代中中性氢的发射特征，这是宇宙历史上未开发的阶段，当时是第一批恒星，星系，星系和类星体的形成。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，并通过与南非的学生交流计划促进国际科学合作。该计划将在每个夏天接待3-4名学生，在旋转的主机机构工作相关研究和工程问题。其他教育和外展工作包括实习，REUS和社区大学转移计划向射电天文学。 获奖者将使用14米的定点抛物线料菜肴在南非的放射优惠平方公里阵列站点进行现场测试新的望远镜设计，并在南非的放射优惠平方公里阵列站点部署37个元素阵列，该盘将在50至225 MHz之间运行。 该设计是由最近的突破所驱动的，该突破使当前的仪器可以去除原本会破坏测量结果的前景排放。探索宇宙黎明和电离时代是当前十年中的三个主要科学优先事项之一，这是天文学和天体物理际调查（New Worlds New Horizo​​ns，2011年）。