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.

我们的大气层对某些无线电频率是透明的，天文学家可以通过这些无线电频率收集重要的天体物理信息，通过这些无线电窗口，我们可以观察恒星形成的最早阶段，以及孕育恒星、行星甚至生命本身的尘埃和复杂分子的形成。位于亚利桑那州格雷厄姆山的亚利桑那射电天文台的亚毫米射电望远镜（SMT）是一个功能极其强大的射电望远镜，位置优越，但其观测能力受到以下因素的限制。它是该项目将为 SMT 开发一种新的接收系统，这些改进将提高 SMT 的观测速度，并使用尖端的商业信号处理技术将记录的频率范围扩大 16 倍。国家研究组织和大学集团之间的合作，通过推进亚毫米技术来提高双方和国家的技术和科学能力，这将为高中生到研究生院的学生提供新的研究和教育机会。作为博士后研究员，它将资助新的推广活动。东亚利桑那学院为格雷厄姆县农村地区和圣卡洛斯阿帕奇保留地提供工具和教育机会 新的 SMT 接收器将采用最新的 0.8mm (275-373 GHz) 边带分离混频器。这些波段将由亚利桑那大学和国家射电天文台（NRAO）中央开发实验室之间的长期合作开发，并将在弗吉尼亚大学的多功能微加工中心制造。这些混频器将以“边带分离”配置耦合，可抑制 15 dB 的图像边带，从而大大降低噪声温度并消除不必要的图像线污染。 1.3 毫米混合器将安装在通用杜瓦瓶中，从而能够在两个频段同时进行观测。接收器杜瓦瓶将为使用新颖的商用射频系统构建的新光谱仪后端提供信号。片上 (RFSoC) 器件，将数字化高达 32 GHz 的瞬时频谱带宽（每边带/偏振 8 GHz），与现有系统相比，接收器噪声和频谱仪带宽的改进将提高 SMT 的测量速度。 0.8毫米波段的系数约为50，这将使天体物理学许多领域的新测量成为可能，包括崩溃边缘的冷核结构、大质量恒星的后期。新的接收器将为许多美国和外国机构的大量天文学家以及 EHT 联盟提供增强的观测能力。一定数量的研究生将参与该仪器的建造。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。