The Future Of The Arecibo Observatory: The Next Generation Arecibo Telescope
Abstract
The Arecibo Observatory (AO) is a multidisciplinary research and education facility that is recognized worldwide as a leading facility in astronomy, planetary, and atmospheric and space sciences. AO's cornerstone research instrument was the 305-m William E. Gordon telescope. On December 1, 2020, the 305-m telescope collapsed and was irreparably damaged. In the three weeks following the collapse, AO's scientific and engineering staff and the AO users community initiated extensive discussions on the future of the observatory. The community is in overwhelming agreement that there is a need to build an enhanced, next-generation radar-radio telescope at the AO site. From these discussions, we established the set of science requirements the new facility should enable. These requirements can be summarized briefly as: 5 MW of continuous wave transmitter power at 2 - 6 GHz, 10 MW of peak transmitter power at 430 MHz (also at 220MHz under consideration), zenith angle coverage 0 to 48 deg, frequency coverage 0.2 to 30 GHz and increased Field-of-View. These requirements determine the unique specifications of the proposed new instrument. The telescope design concept we suggest consists of a compact array of fixed dishes on a tiltable, plate-like structure with a collecting area equivalent to a 300m dish. This concept, referred to as the Next Generation Arecibo Telescope (NGAT), meets all of the desired specifications and provides significant new science capabilities to all three research groups at AO. This whitepaper presents a sample of the wide variety of the science that can be achieved with the NGAT, the details of the telescope design concept and the need for the new telescope to be located at the AO site. We also discuss other AO science activities that interlock with the NGAT in the white paper.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2103.01367,
title = {The Future Of The Arecibo Observatory: The Next Generation Arecibo Telescope},
author = {D. Anish Roshi and N. Aponte and E. Araya and H. Arce and L. A. Baker and W. Baan and T. M. Becker and J. K. Breakall and R. G. Brown and C. G. M. Brum and M. Busch and D. B. Campbell and T. Cohen and F. Cordova and J. S. Deneva and M. Devogele and T. Dolch and F. O. Fernandez-Rodriguez and T. Ghosh and P. F. Goldsmith and L. I. Gurvits and M. Haynes and C. Heiles and J. W. T. Hessel and D. Hickson and B. Isham and R. B. Kerr and J. Kelly and J. J. Kiriazes and J. Lautenbach and M. Lebron and N. Lewandowska and L. Magnani and P. K. Manoharan and J. L. Margot and S. E. Marshall and A. K. McGilvray and A. Mendez and R. Minchin and V. Negron and M. C. Nolan and L. Olmi and F. Paganelli and N. T. Palliyaguru and C. A. Pantoja and Z. Paragi and S. C. Parshley and J. E. G. Peek and B. B. P. Perera and P. Perillat and N. Pinilla-Alonso and L. Quintero and H. Radovan and S. Raizada and T. Robishaw and M. Route and C. J. Salter and A. Santoni and P. Santos and S. Sau and D. Selvaraj and A. J. Smith and M. Sulzer and S. Vaddi and F. Vargas and F. C. F. Venditti and A. Venkataraman and H. Verkouter and A. K. Virkki and A. Vishwas and S. Weinreb and D. Werthimer and A. Wolszczan and L. F. Zambrano-Marin},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2103.01367},
year = {2021}
}
Comments
82 pages (executive summary 10 pages), 21 figures, Arecibo observatory white paper (Updated with the complete author list and minor edits)