AtLAST Science Overview Report
Abstract
Submillimeter and millimeter wavelengths provide a unique view of the Universe, from the gas and dust that fills and surrounds galaxies to the chromosphere of our own Sun. Current single-dish facilities have presented a tantalising view of the brightest (sub-)mm sources, and interferometers have provided the exquisite resolution necessary to analyse the details in small fields, but there are still many open questions that cannot be answered with current facilities. In this report we summarise the science that is guiding the design of the Atacama Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (AtLAST). We demonstrate how tranformational advances in topics including star formation in high redshift galaxies, the diffuse circumgalactic medium, Galactic ecology, cometary compositions and solar flares motivate the need for a 50m, single-dish telescope with a 1-2 degree field of view and a new generation of highly multiplexed continuum and spectral cameras. AtLAST will have the resolution to drastically lower the confusion limit compared to current single-dish facilities, whilst also being able to rapidly map large areas of the sky and detect extended, diffuse structures. Its high sensitivity and large field of view will open up the field of submillimeter transient science by increasing the probability of serendipitous detections. Finally, the science cases listed here motivate the need for a highly flexible operations model capable of short observations of individual targets, large surveys, monitoring programmes, target of opportunity observations and coordinated observations with other observatories. AtLAST aims to be a sustainable, upgradeable, multipurpose facility that will deliver orders of magnitude increases in sensitivity and mapping speeds over current and planned submillimeter observatories.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2407.01413,
title = {AtLAST Science Overview Report},
author = {Mark Booth and Pamela Klaassen and Claudia Cicone and Tony Mroczkowski and Martin A. Cordiner and Luca Di Mascolo and Doug Johnstone and Eelco van Kampen and Minju M. Lee and Daizhong Liu and John Orlowski-Scherer and Amélie Saintonge and Matthew W. L. Smith and Alexander Thelen and Sven Wedemeyer and Kazunori Akiyama and Stefano Andreon and Doris Arzoumanian and Tom J. L. C. Bakx and Caroline Bot and Geoffrey Bower and Roman Brajša and Chian-Chou Chen and Elisabete da Cunha and David Eden and Stefano Ettori and Brandt Gaches and Evanthia Hatziminaoglou and Patricia Luppe and Benjamin Magnelli and Jonathan P. Marshall and Francisco Miguel Montenegro-Montes and Michael Niemack and Conor Nixon and Imke de Pater and Yvette Perrott and Sandra I. Raimundo and Elena Redaelli and Anita Richards and Matus Rybak and Nikolina Šarčević and Dmitry Semenov and Silvia Spezzano and Sundar Srinivasan and Thomas Stanke and Paola Andreani and Maria T. Beltrán and Bryan J. Butler and Sebastiano Cantalupo and Miguel Chavez Dagostino and Ana Duarte-Cabral and Bjorn Emonts and Leigh Fletcher and Dale E. Gary and Stanislav Gunar and Alvaro Hacar and Bendix Hagedorn and Tomek Kaminski and Fiona Kirton and Katherine de Kleer and Eduard Kontar and Yi-Jehng Kuan and John Lightfoot and Enrique Lopez-Rodriguez and Andreas Lundgren and Stefanie N. Milam and Atul Mohan and Raphael Moreno and Galina G. Motorina and Arielle Moullet and Kate Pattle and Alberto Pellizzoni and Nicolas Peretto and Joanna Ramasawmy and Claudio Ricci and Andrew J. Rigby and Álvaro Sánchez-Monge and Maryam Saberi and Masumi Shimojo and Aurora Simionescu and Mark Thompson and Alessio Traficante and Cristian Vignali and Stephen M. White},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2407.01413},
year = {2024}
}
Comments
47 pages, 12 figures. For further details on AtLAST see https://atlast.uio.no