Workshop: AtLAST II Science - Spaces Available

Published: 01 Jul 2018
ALMA at sundown

Higgs Centre for Innovation, Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, UK, 10–13 September 2018

The Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) is the most sensitive millimeter/submillimeter-wave observatory spanning 84–950 GHz, and will soon be extended to down to 35 GHz through Bands 1 and 2. However, ALMA's small field of view limits its mapping speed, and the size of the array elements restricts its ability to recover extended scales. In January 2018, a meeting was held to discuss a possible large, 40-metre-class single dish called the Atacama Large Aperture Sub-mm/mm Telescope (AtLAST). A new workshop has been organised to specifically address the many AtLAST science cases, and white papers covering the science, site selection, telescope design, and instrumentation will follow by the beginning of 2019. To get involved in this community effort, please register via the AtLAST wiki.

Single-dish facilities such as the AtLAST project are generally more flexible to upgrade than an interferometer, and are capable of surveying wide areas of the sky when coupled to wide field instrumentation. AtLAST would feature a large focal plane capable of hosting multi-element, multi-chroic, wide bandwidth instrumentation, ultimately upgradeable to mega-pixel cameras, wideband spectrometers coupled to large focal plane arrays, and large mm/submm integral field units capable of tomography of the universe out to the redshift of formation for dusty galaxies. Notably, there are currently no mm/submm telescopes in the southern hemisphere larger than 12 metres in diameter. The AtLAST workshop in January 2018 considered sites in the Atacama, one of the world’s best locations for millimeter and submillimeter science, as well as telescope designs, instrumentation, and some of the science cases. 

Notes:
1. The date change of the meeting to 10-13 September 2018. This allows those attending the workshop "From First Stars to Life: Science with the Origins Space Telescope" the week before to stay in the UK for the AtLAST 2018 II science workshop. The deadline was 1 July 2018 but there are still places available so if you are interested, please contact the organisers as soon as possible and register online.

2. This event has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 730562 [RadioNet]. This project is a community effort, and is not officially endorsed by ESO or ALMA — in order to succeed, the community must come together and strongly support this effort.