MRI: Development of the Next Generation 211-373 GHz Receiver for the Arizona Radio Observatory’s Sub-mm Telescope

MRI：为亚利桑那射电天文台亚毫米望远镜开发下一代 211-373 GHz 接收器

• 批准号: 2117002
• 负责人: Daniel Marrone
• 金额: $ 98.28万
• 依托单位: University of Arizona
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-09-01 至 2024-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2117002&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: MRI; Development; Next; Generation; 211

Our atmosphere is transparent to some radio frequencies through which astronomers can collect important astrophysical information. Through these radio windows we can observe the earliest stages of star formation, the creation of dust and complex molecules that seed stars, planets, and possibly even life itself, and make the sharpest pictures of black holes. The Sub-millimeter Telescope (SMT) of the Arizona Radio Observatory, located on Mt. Graham, AZ, is an extremely capable radio telescope at a good site, but its ability to observe is limited by its aging systems. This project will develop a new receiving system for the SMT. The improvements will both increase the observing speed of the SMT and use cutting edge commercial signal processing technology to broaden by a factor 16 the range of frequencies recorded. This project is a collaboration between a national research organization and a university group to enhance the technical and scientific capabilities of both, and of the nation, by advancing submillimeter technology. It will provide new opportunities for research and education to students from high school through graduate school, as well as postdoctoral fellows. It will fund new outreach tools and educational opportunities at Eastern Arizona College, which serves rural Graham County and the San Carlos Apache Reservation. The new SMT receiver will incorporate new, state-of-the-art sideband-separating mixers for the 0.8mm (275-373 GHz) band. These will be developed by a long-running collaboration between the University of Arizona and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) Central Development Lab, and will be fabricated at the University of Virginia’s Multifunctional Microfabrication and Scalable Biomanufacturing Facility (IFAB). The mixers will be coupled in a “sideband-separating” configuration, allowing for 15 dB rejection of the image sideband, greatly reducing the noise temperatures and removing unwanted image line contamination. The new 0.8 mm and current 1.3 mm mixers will be mounted in a common dewar, enabling simultaneous observations in the two bands. The receiver dewar will feed a new spectrometer backend built using novel, commercial radio frequency system on chip (RFSoC) devices, that will digitize up to 32 GHz of instantaneous spectral bandwidth (8 GHz per sideband/polarization). Compared to the existing system, the improvements in receiver noise and spectrometer bandwidth will increase the survey speed of the SMT by a factor of ~50 in the 0.8mm band. This will enable new measurements in many areas of astrophysics, including the structure of cold cores on the verge of collapse, the late stages of massive stars and the outflows of planetary nebulae, and the processing of elements critical to life. The new receiver will provide enhanced observational capabilities for a large number of astronomers at many US and foreign institutions, as well as to the EHT consortium. In addition, a substantial number of graduate students will be involved in the construction of the instrument.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.

我们的气氛通过天文学家对某些无线电透明，可以收集重要的天体物理信息。亚利桑那州无线电观测站的望远镜望远镜（SMT）在一个良好的站点上有能力的射电望远镜，但它的观察能力受到衰老系统的限制。信号处理以16的范围记录了一个国家研究组织与E -ENAD的技术和科学能力之间的合作。 NTY和San Carlos Apache预订。国家无线电我的天文台（NRAO）中央发展实验室，并将在弗吉尼亚大学的多元微型制造和可扩展的生物制造设施（IFAB）中制造（IFAB）。噪声温度和去除不良的图像线污染。 ，这将使多达32 GHz的瞬时光谱带宽（每个侧带/极化为8 GHz）与Opting System Rometer带宽相比，SMT的调查速度在0.8mm的频段中增加了约50倍。这将在许多领域的天体物理学，倒塌的边缘的冷核的结构中实现新的测量。许多人的天文学家都将参与该乐器的结构。该奖项反映了NSF'SF'SFFLY的使命，并被认为是值得通过Toundation的知识分子优点和更广泛的Impactigts审查标准来评估的。