Large Latin American Millimeter Array
Alternative names | LLAMA |
---|---|
Location(s) | Puna de Atacama, San Antonio de los Cobres, Salta, Argentina |
Coordinates | 24°11′31″S 66°28′29″W / 24.19206°S 66.47483°W |
Organization | Argentine Institute of Radio Astronomy University of São Paulo |
Altitude | 4,820 m (15,810 ft) |
Wavelength | 35, 1,000 GHz (8.57, 0.30 mm) |
Built | July 2014– |
Telescope style | Cassegrain reflector radio telescope |
Diameter | 12 m (39 ft 4 in) |
Focal length | 4.8 m (15 ft 9 in) |
Mounting | altazimuth mount |
Website | www |
Related media on Commons | |
The Large Latin American Millimeter Array (LLAMA) is a single-dish 12 m
Overview
LLAMA is a joint project between Argentinian and Brazilian Astronomers to build and operate a radio telescope at submillimeter wavelengths, that can work in stand alone mode or join a
History
The history of the instrument can be traced back to 2007, during the XII Latin American Regional IAU Meeting (LARIM)
Measurements of the electrical characteristics of the site were carried out in late 2016, and construction of the road to the summit began in December 2016.[8] Assembly of the antenna is planned to take place in 2022, with testing beginning in 2023.[9]
Origin of the name
The observatory acronym comes from the Quechuan word llama that designates the South American camelid that lives in the region where the telescope is being installed. There is some confusion with the word array, since LLAMA will consist of a single dish antenna, but the instrument will have VLBI technology and can therefore be part of an antenna array with telescopes of other observatories. Moreover, the LLAMA observatory can be expanded in the future by installing other antennas in different sites.
In different official documents the acronym LLAMA may be found expanded as Long Latin American Millimeter Array rather than Large. It is also possible to read Millimetric instead of Millimeter. After some debate, the LLAMA Executive Committee stated that Large Latin American Millimeter Array is the right expansion for the LLAMA acronym.[10]
The observatory logo has as symbols the
Science
LLAMA is a multipurpose instrument, with the capacity to both observe bright sources like the Sun, and very weak sources very far from Earth. The following is a list of different subjects that will be addressed with LLAMA observations.
The Sun
In the unperturbed solar atmosphere, the shorter the wavelength the deeper the observation. Frequencies near the submillimeter range are produced in the lower
Planets
- Extra-solar planetary systems around stars near the Sun.
- Proto-planetary disks in star located in the Solar neighborhood.
- Near-Earth objects.
Stellar objects
- Star forming regions, young stellar objects, and mechanisms of the star formation.
- Non-thermal processes in stellar magnetospheres.
- Interaction of stars and remnants of supernova with the interstellar medium.
Astrophysical jets and maser emission
- Astrophysical jets.
- Maser phenomena of the recombination lines of the hydrogen atom.
- Maser emission in star-forming regions.
- Maser emission in late stars stellar envelopes.
Galactic and Intergalactic interstellar medium
- Continuum radiation from extragalactic cold dust.
- Molecular material in the direction of different stellar objects.
- Intergalactic Medium using the detection of molecular absorption lines in the direction of quasars.
- Cosmic background radiation.
Galaxies
- Search for CO in galaxies with high redshift.
- Molecular abundance.
- Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN).
- Variation of the fundamental constants by the observation of gravitational lensing.
- High redshifts of regions with very high rate of star formation.
- Proto-clusters of galaxies.
- Space-time distortion produced by massive black holes.
High energies
Optics, Receivers
The Nasmyth optics will allow the installation of up to as six different
# | Frequency Band [GHz] | Wavelength Band [mm] |
---|---|---|
1 | 35 - 50 | 8.6 - 6.0 |
3 | 84 - 116 | 3.6 - 2.6 |
5 | 162 - 211 | 1.9 - 1.4 |
6 | 211 - 275 | 1.4 - 1.1 |
7 | 275 - 373 | 1.1 - 0.8 |
9 | 602 - 720 | 0.5 - 0.4 |
It is intended to install a
See also
- Atacama Large Millimeter Arraya, the biggest millimeter array ever built.
- Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX), single dish sub-millimetre telescope built on a modified ALMA prototype antenna
- Atacama Submillimeter Telescope Experiment
- CARMA a sensitive millimetre-wave array operated by a consortium including Caltech, University of California Berkeley, University of Illinois, University of Maryland and University of Chicago
- Cosmic Background Imager a 13 element interferometer operating in Llano de Chajnantor since 1999.
- IRAM
- James Clerk Maxwell Telescope The most sensitive existing sub-millimetre telescope
- IRAM
- Solar Submillimeter Telescope, the unique solar dedicated submillimeter instrument
- List of radio telescopes
- List of observatories
References
- ^ 12th LARIM, 2007
- ^ Mirabel, I.F, Arnal, M.E., Morras, R., Romero, G, Proyecto Latinoamericano de Astronomía en Argentina, 2008, presented during the Annual Meeting of the Astronomical Argentinian Association
- ^ Arnal,E.M, Morras, R., García Lambas, D.G., Recabarren P., ¿Dónde instalamos el telescopio?, Revista Ciencia Hoy, 19, 110, Abril-Mayo, 2009
- ^ Bareilles, F., Opacidad al cénit a 210 GHz (tipper)
- ^ XVII IAU GA, Rio de Janeiro, 3-14 Aug 2009
- ^ Mirabel, I.F, Arnal, E.M., Morras, R., Romero, G., Lepine, J.R.D., Abraham, Z., de Gouveia Dal Pino, E., Long Latin American Millimeter Array,pdf Archived 2014-08-19 at the Wayback Machine)
- ^ Jesús Rodríguez, Diario Clarín, Buenos Aires, 9 July 2014, accessed on 15 August 2014
- ^ LLAMA site at Alto Chorrillos. LLAMA News #2, Feb. 2017. https://www.llamaobservatory.org/LLAMA_newsletter_n_2.pdf. Retrieved 24 September 2018.
- ^ LLAMA Overview. LLAMA News #3, June 2021. https://www.llamaobservatory.org/sobre/LLAMA_news_en_3_2021.pdf. Retrieved 6 March 2022. "LLAMA News #2" (PDF). 2022-03-06. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2022-03-06. Retrieved 2022-03-06.
- ^ LLAMA Executive Committee Meeting, May 2014, La Plata (personal communication)
- ^ De la Luz, V, Lara, A., Raulin, J.-P., Synthetic spectra of radio, millimeter, sub-millimeter, and infrared regimes with non-local thermodynamic equilibrium approximation, Astrophys. J., 737, 1 (2011)
- ^ Silva, A. V. et al., Diffuse Component Spectra of Solar Active Regions at Submillimeter Wavelengths, Solar Phys., 227,261 (2005)
- ^ Kaufmann, P et al. , A new solar burst spectral component emitting only in the Terahertz range, Astrophys. J. 603, L121 (2004)
- ^ ALMA frequency bands