Astronomy Beyond 2009

1. Astronomy Beyond 2009 Large Radio Astronomy Projects Ron Ekers, CSIRO IYA Closing Ceremony, Padua, Italy 10 Jan 2010

2. Outline • From Galileo to Jansky • Astronomy at radio wave lengths • Impact of new technology • Science Opportunities • Examples of a few key experiments with some of the proposed facilities • Future Facilities • EVLA • ATA, GMRT • ALMA • LOFAR, MWA • Focal Plane Arrays • Parkes, Arecibo, ASKAP, Apertif (cm • SPT… (mm) • SKA R D Ekers

3. Galileo Galilei – 1609 • Galileo builds a telescope and he sees the moons of Jupiter. “Four planets, never seen since the beginning of the World right up to our day”

4. Galileo’s discoveries • Used an instrument built for other purposes • Unexpected discoveries • Except for phases of Venus • But directly relevant to current theories of the Sun centered model of the Universe • Copernicus, Kepler • Galileo had no doubt that Copernicus and Kepler were right, yet he continued to search for evidence in favour of this model in the hope of converting the establishment, which still clung to the traditional view of an Earth-centred universe. R D Ekers

5. 323 years later • Mankind had its next new view of the Universe • The discovery of a new kind of telescope opens a new window on the Universe using radio waves

6. Karl Jansky Bell Telephone Laboratory 1932

7. Discoveries made with new instruments • Used a telescope built for other purposes • Communications • Completely unexpected discovery • No existing theoretical framework • Required a universe with non-thermal phenomena R D Ekers

8. The 4 Nobel prizes in Radio Astronomy • Cosmic Microwave Background (1965) • Nobel prize to Penzias and Wilson • Discovery of pulsars (1967) • radio pulsations from neutron stars • Tony Hewish (Jocelyn Bell) • & Aperture synthesis (1967) • Martin Ryle • CMB spectrum & anisotropy (1989) • COBE satellite • John Mather & George Smoot • Verification of Einstein's prediction of gravitational radiation • 1993 Noble prize to Taylor and Hulse

9. Discoveries made with new instruments: CMB discovery • Unexpected discovery • Used a telescope built for other purposes • Communications • Directly relevant to existing models of a big bang expanding Universe • Dicke, Novikov, Gamov • These models had not been accepted by the (steady state) establishment R D Ekers

10. Exponential increase in sensitivity x 105 since 1940 ! 3 year doubling time for sensitivity Jansky 1931 - the beginning Radio Telescope Sensitivity R D Ekers

11. Exponential increase in sensitivity x 105 since 1940 ! Radio Telescope Sensitivity • Upgrades can’t sustain an exponential increase • Eg Arecibo upgrade • Parkes upgrade • Exponential growth needs new technology R D Ekers

12. Commercial Drivers for Technology • The advances described by Moore’s Law are directly applicable to radio telescope design • MMIC (large scale integrated circuit) technology allows cheap duplication of complex circuits • Driven by eg mobile radio communications technology • Optical fibre communications • Cheap mass storage • The R&D needed at radio wavelengths is directly relevant to the broader S&T research priorities in most countries RDE OECD Munich 2004

13. New Parameter Space • Wide FOV • Feed arrays • Sensitivity • Collecting area • Wide bandwidth • Signal processing • Very high angular resolution • Wide band communications links • Interference mitigation R D Ekers

14. ALMA • ALMA • Transformational science at mm wavelengths • Born in late 1980’s • 20 year realisation • Technology shift from single dish to an array R D Ekers

15. ALMAFirst Fringes: 12 Nov 2009 ESO

16. VLANew Mexico VLA 1980 E-VLA 2010

17. Time Magazine’s Opinion

18. Square km telescope: the concept • Array with a very large number of elements • Square km of collecting area • Frequency range 0.03 - 20GHz • Sensitivity 100 x VLA • Resolution 0.1” – 0.001” • Multibeam (at lower frequencies) R. Ekers - Square Km Array

19. Square Km Array R D Ekers

20. Achieving the vision - International Collaboration? • To build facilities which no single nation can afford • Coordination • Avoiding wasteful competition • Broader knowledge base, cross fertilisation • Wealth creation • IAU Large Telescope WG • Initiated after the SKA resolution and discussion at the den Hague GA in 1994 • OECD Global Science Forum

21. SKA 6cm HST SKA’s 1o field-of-view SKA 20 cm and x100 possible! 15 Mpc at z = 2 ALMA R D Ekers

22. ORIGINS Probing the Dark Ages When & how were the first stars formed? Cosmology and Galaxy Evolution Galaxies, Dark Energy and Dark Matter Atrobiology What are the conditions for life and where can it be found? FUNDAMENTAL FORCES Strong-field tests of General Relativity Was Einstein correct? Origin & Evolution of Cosmic Magnetism Where does magnetism come from? plus The Exploration of the Unknown(Special Session 5) SKA Key Science Drivers Science with the Square Kilometre Array (2004, eds. C. Carilli & S. Rawlings, New Astron. Rev.,48)

23. Possible telescope configurations 1500 dishes (15m diameter) in central ~5 km 1500 dishes from 5 km to 3000+ km Communications links + power Receptors in stations along spiral arms Dense aperture arrays Central Processing Facility 40 stations 5-200 km 40 remote stations 200 to >3000 km Station Sparse aperture arrays

24. Multi-pixels at mid-frequencies with a dense aperture array EMBRACE 2-PAD SKADS

25. LOFAR IN A NUTSHELL – 1 • Frequency range • 10 - 80 MHz & 110 - 240 MHz • Two orders of mag. improvement in resolution and sensitivity • Baselines: • ~ 100 km (NL) Initially – “Phase 1” • ~ 1000 km (EU) Ultimately – “Phase 2” • 2 km core (40% of area) + 45 stations • Novel Aspects: • Most versatile of planned LF arrays • Element/ stations with phased arrays • ~ 17000 dipoles • Electronic pointing • Many simultaneous beams • Supercomputer as correlator • RFI mitigation • Prototype for SKA technology • Multidisciplinary sensor array • e.g. Geophones and infrasound • How does gas extraction effect earth crust?

26. Southern Africa Dish construction building First KAT7 antenna Support base

27. Proposed SKA Timeline 2011 2006 2007 2008 2009 2020 2013 SKA Pathfinder construction Demonstrator developments 2070+ SKA Construction Site bid Full SKA operational Technology selection SKA production readiness review Site ranking R. Schilizzi

28. ASKAP

29. A few Key Science Experiments

30. Advanced LIGO Pulsars LISA SKA Pulsars as Gravitational Wave Detectors Millisecond pulsars act as arms of huge detector: Pulsar Timing Array: Look for global spatial pattern in timing residuals! • Complementary in Frequency! Kramer - Leiden retreat (updated)

31. SKA ATA Phoenix Enhanced SETI Searching Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) the universe is infinite, composed of many worlds and animated by common life

32. Avery Meiksen Epoch of reionization R D Ekers

33. High Redshift HI Experiments • Bebbington (1985); Uson; et alia • Current generation: • PAST 21CMA (Pen, Peterson, Wang: China) • LOFAR(de Bruyn et alia: The Netherlands) • MWA (Lonsdale, Hewitt et alia: WA) • PAPER (Backer, Bradley: NRAO GBWA?) • CORE (Ekers, Subramanian, Chippendale: WA) • Next generation: • SKA (International) $$ $$$ $$ $$ $ $$$$$ Don Backer

34. CMB acoustic peaks R D Ekers

35. Simulation of Evolution of Acoustic Oscillations TIME R D Ekers

36. K. I. Kellermann