Tom Landecker (Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory, National Research Council Canada)

Tom Landecker Colloquium: The Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment – CHIME

Marsfield Lecture Theatre

Abstract

The CHIME radio telescope was designed to map the matter distribution in the Universe over the redshift range 0.8 to 2.5, to cover the epoch when Dark Energy became a significant factor in the universal expansion. To achieve this, CHIME is mapping emission from redshifted atomic hydrogen over the frequency range 400 to 800 MHz, covering the entire Northern sky. In the first years of its operation CHIME has also become the world’s leading detector of Fast Radio Bursts, FRBs. FRBs are energetic events of short duration, coming from large distances. In this talk I will briefly describe the telescope and will discuss the progress made on both these fronts.