Over the past three years the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter Astronomy (CARMA) was formed from the merger of two telescope arrays supported by the Division of Astronomical Science's University Radio Observatories (URO) Program, these being Caltech?s Owens Valley Radio Observatory (OVRO) array of six 10.4-meter-diameter telescopes, and the Berkeley Illinois Maryland Association (BIMA) array of nine 6.1-meter-diameter telescopes. With commissioning at the new site now complete, CARMA will achieve resolutions as high as 0.2 arcseconds at a wavelength of 1mm and, due to its heterogeneous combination of telescope diameters, will provide excellent imaging over a wide range of angular scales. When new receivers are installed in 2009, CARMA's sensitivity in the 1 mm band will be an order of magnitude greater than that of the previous arrays. The new science enabled by CARMA covers a broad range of astronomical topics, including star formation and molecular clouds, studies of external galaxies, and the investigation of solar system objects. CARMA is a pathfinder for the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) and a pipeline for training experts in the field of millimeter interferometry to take full advantage of ALMA's capabilities for US astronomy.
This grant supports technical development, scientific operations, and student training on the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy (CARMA). CARMA is unique and powerful array of radio telescopes located at an elevation of 7200 ft (2200 m) in the Inyo Mountains of California, operated by the California Institute of Technology, University of California-Berkeley, University of Illinois, University of Maryland, and the University of Chicago. Our science results impact our view of the Universe through: (1) high resolution imaging of material in disks around young stars where planets could be forming; (2) wide-field imaging of the structure of nearby molecular clouds on the scale that individual stars like our Sun form; (3) tracing star forming activity of the molecular gas in nearby galaxies like our own; (4) discovery of molecular gas in the youngest galaxies in the Universe; and (5) studies of the structure of galaxy clusters, the largest objects in the Universe. These studies are answering fundamental questions about how the Earth, Sun, and Galaxy formed. The results have appeared in over 100 refereed publications; selected results have been highlighted in a number of popular press releases. University of Maryland effort has been particularly involved in the development of efficient wide field mapping with CARMA. We have improved the real time data collection efficiency for mapping observations and developed the methodology for utilizing the autocorrelation data from the array. By combining the standard interferometric observations and the autocorrelation data, we have enhanced the array's capability to create full images of the molecular emission from star forming regions. This is particularly important for deriving information about gas motions. Our primary science application for this techincal development has been the mapping of dense gas in give regions of star formation. The goal of the project is to understand how dense gas in clouds evolve into stars. Our technical developments include applications of Field Programmable Gate Arrays which push the state-of-the-art of the latest commercial chips, sensitive receivers at millimeter wavelengths, and corrections for atmospheric blurring at millimeter wavelengths. Our science and technical developments directly involve typically 15-20 graduate students and 5-10 postdoctoral scientists. In many cases, students lead these efforts as the centerpiece of their Ph.D. work; in other cases, postdoctoral scientists lead projects as part of their continuing training. Our training provides both team and leadership opportunities to develop a wide range of skills. We have been very successful in placing our students and postdoctoral scientists into the technical and academic workforce.
