Dr. Russ Taylor (The University of Calgary)

Building Telescopes with Balloons - Dr. Russ Taylor Colloquium

ATNF Marsfield Lecture Theatre

Abstract

The Square Kilometer Array requires dramatic new technology development to realize the vision of a telescope that will be 100 times more powerful than the Very Large Array in the next few decades.
A novel concept, called the Large Adaptive Reflector (LAR), that involves receving systems supported by an aerostat several hundred metres above a parabolic reflector is under study at the National Research Council of Canada.

The LAR has many important attributes: it is capable of efficiently rendering the physical collecting area in a costeffective way; wide frequency range and wide instantaneous bandwidth is inherent in the design; and by using a focal plane array, large fields of view can be attained.

The current specifications for the SKA can largely be met with an array of 60 200-m diameter LAR antennas, giving an effective area of ~10^6 m^2, a frequency range from around 100 MHz to 22 GHz, a square degree field-of-view at a wavelength of 21 cm, and with system temperatures similar to those available on the best telescopes today (20-30 K). Such an array could attain a point source sensitivity of 11 nanoJy at 1.4cm in 1 hour.