Related papers: Review: Far-Infrared Instrumentation and Technolog…
The past fifty years have been an epoch of impressive progress in the field of astronomical technology. Practically all the technical tools, which we use today, have been developed during that time span. While the first half of this period…
Over its more than thirty-year history, the Advanced Technologies and Instrumentation (ATI) program has provided grants to support technology development for ground-based astronomy. Research from this program has advanced adaptive optics,…
Optical fibres have already played a huge part in ground based astronomical instrumentation, however, with the revolution in photonics currently taking place new fibre technologies and integrated optical devices are likely to have a…
Roughly half of the radiation from evolving galaxies in the early universe reaches us in the far-infrared and submillimeter wavelength range. Recent major advances in observing capabilities, in particular the launch of the Herschel Space…
The question "How did we get here and what will the future bring?" captures the human imagination and the attention of the National Academy of Science's Astronomy and Astrophysics Survey Commitee (AASC). Fulfillment of this "fundamental…
Research activities during the last decade have shown the strong potential of photonic devices to greatly simplify ground based and space borne astronomical instruments and to improve their performance. We focus specifically on the…
Although far-IR -- mm-wave astronomy has now been developing for several decades, access to this portion of the spectrum remains difficult and limited. Relative to their optical-wavelength counterparts, the submillimeter observatories are…
Observations at far-infrared and submillimeter wavelengths promise to revolutionize the study of high redshift galaxies and AGN by providing a unique probe of the conditions within heavily extinguished regions of star formation and nuclear…
Much of the progress in Astronomy has been driven by instrumental developments, from the first telescopes to fiber fed spectrographs. In this review we describe the field of astrophotonics, a combination of photonics and astronomical…
Imaging and spectroscopic observations in the mid-infrared wavelength range (5$\mu$m--30$\mu$m) offer valuable insight into the origins of stars and planets. Sensitive new array detectors on 8-meter class telescopes make it possible to…
Deep near-infrared (NIR) surveys are critical to our current, and even more to our future, understanding of galaxy evolution in the early universe. In this review I will be discussing the relevance of deep NIR surveys and looking at the…
Over the past century, major advances in astronomy and astrophysics have been largely driven by improvements in instrumentation and data collection. With the amassing of high quality data from new telescopes, and especially with the advent…
The number of small satellites has grown dramatically in the past decade from tens of satellites per year in the mid-2010s to a projection of tens of thousands in orbit by the mid-2020s. This presents both problems and opportunities for…
Wide-angle surveys have been an engine for new discoveries throughout the modern history of astronomy, and have been among the most highly cited and scientifically productive observing facilities in recent years. This trend is likely to…
Advances in astronomy are often enabled by adoption of new technology. In some instances this is where the technology has been invented specifically for astronomy, but more usually it is adopted from another scientific or industrial area of…
We study the fundamental limits of detection for astrophysical observations in the far infrared. Understanding these fundamental limits is critical to the planning and analysis of experiments in this region. We specifically characterize the…
Interferometry has brought many new constraints in optical astronomy in the recent years. A major leap in this field is the opening of large interferometric facilities like the Very Large Telescope Interferometer and the Keck Interferometer…
The first unbiased surveys for high-redshift galaxies in the submillimeter (submm) and far-infrared (FIR) wavebands have been made over the last two years. When combined with the intensity of extragalactic background radiation in the same…
Radio pulsars have been responsible for many astonishing astrophysical and fundamental physics breakthroughs since their discovery 50 years ago. In this review I will discuss many of the highlights, most of which were only possible because…
This paper describes the beginning of the Far-Infrared Surveyor mission study for NASA's Astrophysics Decadal 2020. We describe the scope of the study, and the open process approach of the Science and Technology Definition Team. We are…