This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).

The Pricipal Investigator's (PI's) team will develop new and improved instrumentation and infrastructure for the existing Owens Valley Solar Array (OVSA), and thereby create a major university-based facility serving a broad scientific community. The team will upgrade OVSA from its current complement of 7 antennas to a total of 15, with the addition of 8 new antennas. They will also replace existing OVSA control systems, wiring, and signal processing systems with modern, more capable, and more reliable electronics using new technologies. The project will result in a world-class facility for scientific research at microwave radio frequencies, focused on space weather physics and solar astronomy. Solar radio emission is very sensitive to the physics of space weather processes. The enhanced OVSA facility will provide key diagnostic observations of the magnetic and thermal structure of the solar atmosphere, the release of magnetic energy in the corona, and the space weather consequences of solar activity.

This effort will provide the scientific community with new and powerful tools for radio astronomy in general, as well as a unique combination of spatial, spectral, and temporal resolution to exploit radio diagnostics of the Sun beyond what has previously been possible. The improved facility will support the university community by providing open data access and software tools for radio data analysis, and by exploiting data sets and analysis techniques used in on-going solar research in non-radio wavelength bands. The PI's team will invoke a rich heritage of radar design work to accomplish a wide range of science objectives that has been thoroughly vetted by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences.

The project will provide jobs to US small industry and to the local economy, and will offer technical training and scientific research experience for students, as well as young scientists and engineers. This development effort will provide trainees with much-needed instrumental expertise in the fields of broadband radio frequency engineering, high-speed digital electronics and signal processing, and high performance computing. The project includes well-integrated education and training plans for undergraduate and graduate students, as well as for post-doctoral researchers and entry-level engineers. The instrumentation and software developed by this project will provide new tools for classroom use, and will enlarge the base of researchers who will be able to apply interferometric imaging techniques and radio emission physics to studying key problems in solar physics, space weather physics, and astrophysics. The PI expects that new discoveries enabled by the new OVSA facility will help us improve the reliability of our technological systems on Earth and in space.

Project Report

The Expanded Owens Valley Solar Array project, funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, provided jobs for the local economy near Big Pine, CA, as well as at technology companies around the nation. The project funded the construction of 8 new antennas and refurbishment of 7 existing ones to create a state-of-the-art observing facility for studying the basic science of the Sun and how it affects the Earth. The new antennas view the entire Sun at once, and the distribution of antenna locations provides for high-resolution images. The new, broadband radio-frequency technology used in the array, and the advanced, high-speed digital technology for processing the signals, allows these images to be obtained at hundreds of radio frequencies every second. From these multifrequency radio images, we can study the magnetic fields of the solar corona, a region of the Sun that is responsible for solar flares and eruptions that directly affect the Earth. By measuring the solar coronal magnetic fields and their evolution, we can better determine what causes solar flares and magnetic eruptions. In addition, these radio images are also used to measure the energetic electrons produced during flares, and the prevalence and impact of wave turbulence on the electrons, which provides further information about the development of the flaring process. The ability to take high-quality images at hundreds of radio frequencies is what makes the new facillity uniquely capable of obtaining these important measurements. In addition to basic research on the Sun, we also use our real-time data to monitor the Sun's activity and provide information useful for determining whether communication or navigation systems at Earth may be affected. As one of the few university-based radio facilities in the nation, and the only one dedicated to solar research, the Owens Valley Solar Array provides hands-on training for students at New Jersey Institute of Technology and our partner institutions, in both solar physics and in high-frequency radio instrumentation. Students at all levels, including from local high-schools in New Jersey, participate in taking and analyzing the data.

Agency
National Science Foundation (NSF)
Institute
Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences (AGS)
Type
Standard Grant (Standard)
Application #
0959761
Program Officer
Ilia I. Roussev
Project Start
Project End
Budget Start
2010-10-01
Budget End
2013-09-30
Support Year
Fiscal Year
2009
Total Cost
$5,121,584
Indirect Cost
Name
Rutgers University
Department
Type
DUNS #
City
Newark
State
NJ
Country
United States
Zip Code
07102