Potential UK Involvement in the Cornell-Caltech Atacama Telescope (CCAT)
2006 September 13, Cardiff
Original meeting web page
CCAT is a project to build a 25-m single-aperture telescope above 5000 m in the Atacama region of Chile. The remarkably low water vapour in the atmosphere will allow extended operation in the farinfrared windows of the spectrum (200 and 350 microns) accessible from the ground. Such observations will probe the peak emission from the cosmic far-IR/submm background and proto-stellar cores allowing the investigation of the earliest stages of the formation of galaxies and stars. With its wide field-of-view the telescope will study the many phenomena visible in the submm that extend over several degrees but also contain significant sub-structure on arcsecond scales. Hence CCAT is seen as the perfect wide-field complement that is essential to fully exploit the capabilities of interferometers, such as ALMA.
There exists the opportunity for the UK to become a major partner in the CCAT project, capitalising on our success in submillimetre astronomy via facilities like JCMT/SCUBA in recent years and looking ahead to the potential of SCUBA-2, Herschel and ALMA. The discussion meeting will be a forum for UK astronomers to express an interest in the project and help to outline a detailed science case. One of the key areas will be to examine the niche science that such a facility will have in 2013, the estimated date when the telescope would come on-line. A possible outcome of the meeting is a Statement of Interest to PPARC to join the CCAT consortium. More information on the project can be found at the links given below.
| Meeting Summary | ||
Presentations |
||
| The current status of CCAT and the funding implications | Ian Robson | |
| Introduction to the CCAT project (movie: mov avi) | Wayne Holland | |
| CCAT within Radionet | Phil Diamond | |
| Pre-stellar and protostellar cores | Derek Ward-Thompson | |
| Synergy with ALMA (movie: mpg) | John Richer | |
| Spectroscopy with CCAT | Gary Fuller | |
| Debris Disks | Jane Greaves | |
| High-Mass Star Formation | Mark Thompson | |
| Confusion Noise | Bill Dent | |
| Blank Field Surveys | Seb Oliver | |
| A cheap way of resolving the extragalactic background | Steve Eales | |
| High-z Galaxy Surveys | Scott Chapman | |
| CCAT estimated performance | ||
| SCELT: A submillimetre camera for the ELT |
Presentations available in pdf.
Coordinators
Derek Ward-Thompson (Derek.Ward-Thompson@astro.cf.ac.uk)David Nutter (David.Nutter@astro.cf.ac.uk)
Wayne Holland (wsh@roe.ac.uk)
Attendees
Peter AdeSumedh Anathpindika
Ian Bonnell
Paolo Calisse
Antonio Chrysostomou
Scott Chapman (Vid-link)
Jim Cohen
Jon Davies
Richard Davis
Bill Dent
Phil Diamond
Steve Eales
Brian Ellison
Rhodri Evans
Gary Fuller
Walter Gear
Jane Greaves
Matt Griffin
Haley Gomez
Peter Hargrave
Richard Hills
Wayne Holland
Kate Isaak
Rob Ivison
Jason Kirk
David Nutter
Bruno Maffei
Seb Oliver
Jonathan Rawlings
John Richer
Ian Robson
Giorgio Savini
Bruce Sibthorpe
Ian Smail
Jason Stevens
Mark Thompson
Carole Tucker
Colin Vincent
Tim Waskett
Derek Ward-Thompson
Peter Wilkinson
Mike Zemcov