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AASC O/IR from the Ground Panel (A. Dressler)
Chair: Alan Dressler --- Carnegie Observatories
AASC Vice-Chair: Todd Boroson --- NOAO
AASC Vice-Chair: Jerry Nelson --- UCSC – Lick Obs.
Planetary representative: Dave Jewitt --- IfA Hawaii
Members:
Jill Bechtold --- Arizona
Ray Carlberg --- U. of Toronto
Bruce Carney --- U. of North Carolina
Jim Elliot --- MIT
Richard Elson --- Florida State
Andrea Ghez --- UCLA
Charles Lada --- CfA
Jim Liebert --- Arizona
Chuck Steidel --- Caltech
Chris Stubbs --- U. Washington
Status and plan:
First meeting held at Austin, AAS meeting.
Held public meeting and open meeting. Roughed out science priorities and made writing assignments. Agreed on a list of solicitations and a general call for input from the community.
Second meeting to be held at Chicago AAS meeting. Will hold public meeting but not open meeting. Invitations to speak to about 12 people regarding plans (for example, AURA plan) and projects, for example, the Extremely Large Telescope. Will review science cases and attempt to match up to proposed facilities and capabilities. Close public input AAS + 2 weeks.
Third and final meeting in July at Carnegie Observatories. Prioritize science and what we need to do the science. Assign final writing assignments. Anticipate 20 page summary backed up by 300 page document of science cases and project/issue papers. Submission to AASC on September 1, 1999.
Chair disappears to Bolivia.
Began the process by identifying notable accomplishments in the 1990's that owe principally to observations with ground-based O/IR telescopes.
1. Discovery of z < 3 galaxies
2. Discovery of planets around nearby stars
3. Ly-alpha forest and damped Lyman-alpha as a cosmological probe
4. Detection of first brown dwarfs
5. Proto-stellar disks and proto-planetary material
6. Black holes in galactic centers
7. Nature of gamma ray bursts
8. Omega = 0.3 (Open universe!). Non-zero lambda??????
9. Application of supernovae to cosmology
10. Large-scale surveys reach limits of largest structures (Las Campanas Redshift Survey)
11. Structure of the Galaxy (e.g., Galactic streams in the halo)
12. Gravitational lensing, (microlensing) as a tool for investigation mass distributions
13. Discovery of the Kuiper belt
We assigned members of the panel to prepare a writeup on each of these 11 topics, asking them to request input from their colleagues working in the area. We asked our panel members, and the outsiders, to consider the following outline as a structure.
1. Describe the breakthrough science in the last decade and forecast what would/could be the accomplishments of the next decade.
- connect to basic themes (like origins, exploration, destiny)
- motivation, successes, past limitations
- emphasis on discoveries, past or potential
- long term goal in this area
2. Synergy with space based astronomy and other bands (e.g. radio)
- the aspect that makes the O/IR observations unique or crucial?
3. Infrastructure
- does the work require new technology or new instruments? Are new detectors or new techniques involved?
- does the work mainly exploit existing facilities or the new generation of 8-m telescopes?
- what is the reliance on surveys? what is the possibility for archiving and multiple use of data?
4. Does the work place new demands on information technology? (This is an important new NSF initiative)
- establishing very large databases and the capability to store them, mine them, archive them, and distribute them
5. What is the potential for support of educational initiatives, K-12, teacher involvement, etc.?
6. What new facility initiatives are suggested or required by the coming research?
A list of possibilities we have assembled so far:
- 3-degree field 6.5-m survey telescopes (in one or both hemispheres)
- the NBT (next big thing), anything from a 25-m seeing-limited telescope (ELT) to a 50-m or larger diffraction limited, steerable telescope (MAXAT, OWL)
- optical/IR adaptive optics, the need for further development and implementation
- near-IR interferometers (Keck or beyond?)
- an optical array telescope
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Reports Solicited/Contributed (T. Boroson)
MAXAT – 50 m Diff. Lim. Fully Steerable Telescope
OWL -- ESO 100m D.L. Fully Steerable Telescope
ELT – 30 m "Hobby-Eberly" Telescope
3DT – 6.5 m Wide-field Imaging Survey Telescope
SST -- 8.4 m Wide-field Spectroscopic Survey Telescope
IRVLA – 27 x 4 m array
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NOAO Long Range Plan
Gemini Strategic Plan
AURA White Paper
Future Direction of NOAO – AURA
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2 m IR Telescope at South Pole
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Detectors
Software Issues
Instrument Builders
Robonet
Time-res. spect
N Stars
MAXAT – 50 m, D. L., Fully Steerable Telescope
-- Spect. of Faintest HDF sources + NGST
-- Must Develop Multi-GS AO
-- Formation and evolution of planetary systems
IRVLA – 27 4m Telescope
-- Maximum B. L. ~1000m
-- m>16 – F92AO
-- l/D ~ 200 m arcsec
-- Needs AO, beam comb.
ELT – 30 m Spher. Primary
-- 1 arcmin FOV
-- Tracks @ S + -60 to + 60 for 1 hour
-- 0.3 arcsec images
-- Beats NGST or AO-capable 8m for R > 104 (105) by x4 (x10) in s/n at l < 2.5 m
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Survey Telescopes: 6.5–8.4 m
Imaging -- 3° FOV
0.3–1.6 m
Spect -- 1.5° FOV
> 1000 Spect/Exp
Map Dark Matter to Z = 1
Find Z > 1 SN
Find NEO's
Map Kuiper Belt
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2 m IR Telescope at South Pole
-- 2.4m - 5m sensitivity
-- @ 3.6m , background is 1/20 of M.K.
-- Wide field
OIR Panel: Technology Issues (J. Nelson)
Adaptive Optics
ro ~ l 6/5
t o ~ l 6/5
q o ~ l 6/5
needed photon flux ~ l -18/5
necessary degree of freedom control
l = 1m m, ro ~ 0.5 m
D
l/D
Nnet
DM
low noise wfs
laser
MAGS
4
.052
64
X
X
8
.026
256
X
X
X
25
.008
2,500
X
X
X
X
50
.004
10,000
X
X
X
X
100
.002
40,000
X
X
X
X
Need to develop:
better DM's (smaller too)
very low noise wfs (£ 1 e-)
reliable laser beams
mult. artif. guide star methods
high speed comp. ~ D4
Advanced Telescope (³ 20 m) (issue $)
Optics
-- segment fabrication (polishing)
-- active control
+ sensors
+ actuators
System design/optimization (must greatly reduce scaled costs)
Instruments
-- Seeing limited ---- huge inst.
-- Diffraction limit.---- excellent A.O.
Detectors
0.3 – 1.1 m CCD's
0.3 – 0.4: QE still an issue
0.8 – 1.1: QE, fringing still an issue
size 2 x 4 K 3 side buttable ~ OK
0.4 – 1.1 m
AO wavefront sensors big issue
low noise £ 1 e-
high speed ~ 10 KHz
"large" 256 x 256
1 – 5 m
need bigger detectors
lower dark current
8 – 25 m
" " "
Interferometry
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