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Science in the Next Decade
The Green Bank Observatory is currently conducting a survey on what new instruments the community would like to have available on the GBT. Please make your voice heard at this link.
These instruments include:
- 40-Pixel L-band Phased Array Feed (ALPACA) – ALPACA on the GBT will enable searches for pulsars as well as diffuse HI mapping with both high sensitivity and high dynamic range over a wide field of view.
- Ku-Band Radar Transmitter (ngRADAR) – The ngRADAR will enable high resolution imaging of the Moon and planetary bodies, physical characterization of space debris, and detection and characterization of near-Earth asteroids.
- 225-Pixel K-Band Phased Array Feed (KPAF) – The KPAF will simultaneously observe the (1,1), (2,2), and (3,3) inversion transitions of ammonia, a critically important probe of dense molecular gas. Mapping these transitions on a large scale is crucial for understanding star formation processes but requires prohibitively large amounts of telescope time using existing hardware.
- 144-Pixel W-band Array (Argus144, Spectral Lines) – Argus-144 will deliver high-fidelity maps of fundamental transitions of molecules that are sensitive tracers of gas covering a wide range of physical conditions, over spatial scales ranging from the sub-parsec thickness of filaments and dense cores in our own Galaxy, to the ~100 pc size of molecular clouds in the spiral arms of nearby galaxies.
- 600-Pixel W-Band Bolometer (MUSTANG-3, Continuum) –MUSTANG-3 will operate from 75-105 GHz with full polarization, mapping 19 times faster than and have double the FOV of MUSTANG-2. This will enable deeper, high resolution studies of cosmology, galaxy clusters, star forming regions, and the Galactic plane.
While the current technical specifications are under discussion, the final instruments may have the characteristics outlined on this page.
The GBT Today
The Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) is a unique resource for the US and global astronomical communities. The combination of its fully steerable 100-m unblocked aperture which provides an extremely clean point spread function allowing high dynamic range observations of diffuse emission, active surface that can maintain an RMS surface accuracy of 230 microns , 0.29–116 GHz nearly continuous frequency coverage with low-noise radio receivers, flexible instrumentation, the ability to observe declinations as low as -47°, and location in two different interference protection zones are not found in any other single telescope. This makes it one of the world’s premier telescopes for studying low-frequency gravitational waves, multi-messenger astronomy, fundamental physics, fast radio transients, cosmology, star formation, astrochemistry, gas in galaxies, and in the search for technosignatures.
The GBT was built to be flexible and continuously upgraded to meet the needs of the astronomical community. In the next decade, there are several projects planned which will expand the GBT’s performance in five key areas: survey speed, point source sensitivity, radio frequency interference (RFI) protection, accessibility, and preservation of legacy data. These projects are:
- Expanding the instantaneous field of view (FoV) of the GBT with advanced radio cameras.
- Increasing the instantaneous bandwidth of the GBT by developing ultrawideband analog and digital instruments.
- Preserving scientific data quality while sharing the radio spectrum with a growing number of private, commercial, and civil users through better identification and excision of RFI.
- Ensuring long-lasting public access to GBT data through a multi-petabyte data archive and high-performance processing tools.
- Providing increased funding for peer-reviewed use of the GBT for the U.S. astronomy community.
As part of the Astro2020 Decadal Survey the following white papers on activities and projects for the GBT were submitted: