Santiago Navarro

ALMA front-end optics

The ALMA telescope will be an interferometer of 64 antennas, which will be situated in the Atacama desert in Chile. Each antenna will have receivers that cover the frequencies 30 GHz to 970 GHZ. This frequency range is divided into 10 frequency bands. All of these receiver bands are fitted on a cartridge and cooled, with bands 1 and 2 at 15K and the other 8 are SIS receivers at a temperature of 4K. Each band has a dual polarization receiver. The optics has been designed so that the maximum of the optics is cooled to minimize the noise temperature increase to the receivers. The design of the optics will be shown for each frequency bands. Test results with the method of testing on a near field amplitude and phase measurement system will be given for the first 4 frequency bands to be used, which are bands 3 (84-116 GHz), 6 (211-275GHz), 7 (275-375 GHz and 9 (600-702 GHz). These measurements will be compared with physical optics calculations.

GISMO: a 2-millimeter bolometer camera for the IRAM 30 m telescope

We are building a bolometer camera (the Goddard-Iram Superconducting 2-Millimeter Observer, GISMO) for operation in the 2 mm atmospheric window to be used at the IRAM 30 m telescope. The instrument uses a 8x16 planar array of multiplexed TES bolometers which incorporates our newly designed Backshort Under Grid (BUG) architecture. Due to the size and sensitivity of the detector array (the NEP of the detectors is 4×10-17 W/√Hz), this instrument will be unique in that it will be capable of providing significantly greater imaging sensitivity and mapping speed at this wavelength than has previously been possible. The major scientific driver for this instrument is to provide the IRAM 30 m telescope with the capability to rapidly observe galactic and extragalactic dust emission, in particular from high-z ULIRGs and quasars, even in the summer season. The 2 mm spectral range provides a unique window to observe the earliest active dusty galaxies in the universe and is well suited to better confine the star formation rate in these objects. The instrument will fill in the SEDs of high redshift galaxies at the Rayleigh-Jeans part of the dust emission spectrum, even at the highest redshifts. The observational efficiency of a 2 mm camera with respect to bolometer cameras operating at shorter wavelengths increases for objects at redshifts beyond z ~ 1 and is most efficient at the highest redshifts, at the time when the first stars were re-ionizing the universe. Our models predict that at this wavelength one out of four serendipitously detected galaxies will be at a redshift of z > 6.5.

Instrument Performance of GISMO, a 2 Millimeter TES Bolometer Camera used at the IRAM 30 m Telescope

We have developed key technologies to enable highly versatile, kilopixel bolometer arrays for infrared through millimeter wavelengths. Our latest array architecture is based on our Backshort Under Grid (BUG) design, which is specifically targeted at producing kilopixel-size arrays for future ground-based, suborbital and space-based X-ray and far-infrared through millimeter cameras and spectroometers. In November of 2007, we demonstrated a monolithic 8x16 BUG bolometer array with 2 mm-pitch detectors for astronomical observations using our 2 mm wavelength camera GISMO (the Goddard IRAM Superconducting 2 Millimeter Observer) at the IRAM 30 m telescope in Spain. The 2 mm spectral range provides a unique terrestrial window enabling ground-based observations of the earliest active dusty galaxies in the universe and thereby allowing a better constraint on the star formation rate in these objects. We present preliminary results from our observing run with the first fielded BUG bolometer array and discuss the performance of the instrument.

A 3mm multipixel SIS receiver for IRAM 30-m Pico Veleta Telescope

A 3mm band focal plane array heterodyne receiver is being developed for Nasmyth focus of the IRAM 30-m Pico Veleta Radio Telescope located in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, south of Spain. This receiver will comprise 25 dual linear polarization pixels operating across the 80-116GHz nominal band. Design efforts are being made to enlarge the band to cover the full 3mm atmospheric transmission window available at Pico Veleta, i.e. 72-116GHz. The instrument will be coupled to the Pico Veleta Telescope via a purely reflective low-loss optical system that includes a de-rotator. The receiver will be based on 5 x 5 cryogenically cooled dual-linear polarized feed horns cascaded with Ortho Mode Transducers (OMT) and side band separating SIS mixers, a technology which offers state-of-the-art performances for millimeter and sub-millimeter receivers.

A 3mm band dual polarization MMIC receiver for the 30-m Pico Veleta Radio Telescope

We present the design, construction and test results of a prototype MMIC receiver for the 3 mm band (84-116 GHz). The receiver cryogenic module consists of a single corrugated feed horn cascaded with an Ortho Mode Traducer (OMT) that splits the two incoming linear polarized signals in two independent single-mode rectangular waveguides. Low noise MMIC HEMT amplification modules, attached to the OMT WR10 waveguide outputs, amplify the signal of each polarization channel. Outside the dewar, each signal is filtered, down-converted, and further amplified to provide a final 8 GHz IF bandwidth across 4-12 GHz. The receiver was installed on the Pico Veleta 30 m telescope in August 2010 where it was used to perform spectral line surveys of astronomical sources. The measured receiver noise temperature was below 75 K with an average value of ~55 K for both polarization channels across 84-116 GHz.