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TRANSFORMATION 2014 - 2015 ANNUAL REPORT DUNLAP INSTITUTE COLLABORATIONS for ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS

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TRANSFORMATION 2014 - 2015 ANNUAL REPORT DUNLAP INSTITUTE COLLABORATIONS for ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS TRANSFORMATION 2014 - 2015 ANNUAL REPORT DUNLAP INSTITUTE COLLABORATIONS for ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS Director’s Message Prof. Bryan Gaensler he recurring theme of the nothing less than to map the history NIROSETI combines several new TAnnual Report you are about of the Universe. technologies to search for SETI to read is “transformation.” signals consisting of nanosecond You will first be struck by the pulses of infrared radiation. innovative ways in which Dunlap “CHIME and NIROSETI saw “first light” early in Institute researchers are using NIROSETI are 2015, and will begin searching for technology to transform our signals in earnest later this year. approach to astronomy. CHIME and two very different The Dunlap Institute is NIROSETI are two very different experiments, but both also overseeing a very different experiments, but both epitomise the but equally important type of Dunlap way of doing things. epitomise the Dunlap transformation: the transformation The team behind CHIME (pg. way of doing things” of enthusiastic students and postdocs 5), led at the Dunlap by Prof. Keith into seasoned scientists and problem Vanderlinde, is doing something that At the other end of the spectrum, solvers. We are deeply committed Cover was once impossible and unthinkable: NIROSETI (pg. 3) is a Dunlap to training the next generation of their telescope has no moving parts. project led by Prof. Shelley Wright scientists, not just by letting them The CHIME Pathfinder at the The power of this quintessential 21st and Jérome Maire to look for signs of lead interesting research projects, Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory, NRC, in B.C. century spyglass is not in the gears intelligent life in other solar systems. but also by teaching them vital and mirrors, but in the supercomputer While the search for extraterrestrial technical and pedagogical skills. Dunlap Fellow Laura New- that sits alongside it. By processing intelligence (SETI) is more than 50 We are thrilled by our growing burgh works on a CHIME feed in the Long Wavelength stupendous amounts of data at mind- years old, most of that effort has been collaboration on professional Lab at the Dunlap Institute. boggling speeds, CHIME aims for at radio wavelengths. In contrast, development with the Institute C DUNLAP INSTITUTE for ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS “Despite our for Scientist and Engineer Educators, science with the wider community. additionally for convincing me to and last summer we held another Despite our successes in this area, take up this position. successes in this highly successful—and heavily what we have achieved is only the I want to take this opportunity area, what we oversubscribed—Dunlap Institute beginning. We have plans for much to publicly thank some of the other Summer School on Astronomical more ambitious education and talented individuals in the Dunlap have achieved Instrumentation (pg. 16, 17). outreach programs in the coming from whom I have already begun to is only the Finally, we aim to transform the years, which will soon begin to learn so much: Michael Reid, who is wider community’s appreciation of take shape. one of the most inspiring educators beginning.” the Universe. The Dunlap Institute In my first few months as I have ever met; Chris Sasaki, who is unique in that we have a specific Director, I’ve repeatedly been shares my ambitious vision for the mandate from the University of impressed by the high quality of Dunlap’s future; and Alice Chow, the Toronto and from the Dunlap our scientists, staff and students, and epitome of professionalism and the family to foster public engagement have been inspired by their vision glue that holds the Institute together. in science. Whether on campus and enthusiasm. The dynamism of Finally, I want to highlight the at events like the Transit of Venus the Dunlap Institute is a testament superb work done by our Dunlap at Varsity Stadium, the Dunlap to the inspirational role played by Fellows and postdocs, the young Prize Lecture, or our popular the outgoing Interim Director, scientists who are our “secret planetarium shows, or throughout Prof. Peter Martin. On behalf of the weapons” for research, teaching and the city at the Dunlap-sponsored Institute, the University of Toronto outreach. Most of what you will Prof. Bryan Gaensler is Canadian Astronomy on Tap T.O. (pg. 19), we and the Dunlap family, I offer a read about in the following pages Science Director for the SKA, the Square Kilometre Array have an unflagging commitment huge note of thanks to Peter for his is a result of their hard work and (artist’s rendering above). to sharing our excitement about wise leadership in recent years, and brilliant insights. 1 DUNLAP INSTITUTE for ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS Instrumentation Research Transforming the Tools of Astronomy U of T graduate student Elliot Meyer and a collimator lens assembly for WIFIS, the Wide Integral-Field Infrared Spectrograph. WIFIS will be used to observe extended objects like supernova remnant Cassiopeia A. Credit: Cassiopeia A: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/STScI; Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ Steward/O. Krause et al. 2 DUNLAP INSTITUTE NIROSETI for ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS A “Made-in-Canada” Search for Instrumentation Research Extraterrestrial Intelligence – NIROSETI Near-InfraRed Optical Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence f an advanced extra-terrestrial a billionth of a second in duration. on a telescope at the University of Icivilization were trying to The signals would be infrared, California’s Lick Observatory. communicate with us, what the thinking goes, because light The observatory was the site of technology would they use? For at that wavelength is not blocked several previous SETI searches, decades, astronomers reasoned by interstellar gas and dust to the including one with an optical that ET would use radio signals, same extent as visible light; and instrument built by Wright when and so most SETI (Search for they would be nanosecond-long she was an undergraduate student. ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) flashes instead of a continuous Wright developed and built programs scanned the skies with beam because such a short pulse NIROSETI while at the Dunlap Members of the NIROSETI radio telescopes. can be made to outshine a star. Institute, working with Dunlap team at Lick Observatory But a team of astronomers, In March, Wright and her Fellow Jérome Maire who was including Prof. Shelley Wright including SETI pioneer Frank colleagues began a ground- vital in developing an instrument (third from r.), Jérome Maire (fourth from r.) and U of T Drake and led by the Dunlap’s breaking search based on this capable of detecting such a fleeting undergraduate student Patrick Prof. Shelley Wright, thinks ET strategy when they installed an pulse and distinguishing between a Dorval (second from r.). is trying to get our attention instrument called NIROSETI natural signal and one that tells us Credit: © Laurie Hatch with flashes of infrared laser light (Near InfraRed Optical SETI) we are not alone. 3 DUNLAP INSTITUTE DRAGONFLY for ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS Seeing the 01 Instrumentation Research Unseen 02 here’s more to the Universe than meets the eye or and it seemed likely they were relatively nearby dwarf Teven the largest telescopes. And sometimes it takes galaxies that happened to be in the line of sight with a special astronomical eye to reveal how much more. the Coma Cluster. The Dragonfly Telescope Array is a unique multi- However, in follow-up observations with a lens instrument with the ability to detect extremely spectrograph on the Keck I telescope in Hawaii, faint objects that even large telescopes can’t see— Abraham and his colleagues determined that the objects like the tenuous streams and filaments of objects are at the same distance as the Coma Cluster— material left over in the aftermath of galaxy mergers. which means they are members of the distant cluster, Dragonfly accomplishes this using ten 400mm and are not dwarfs but are comparable in size to the photographic lenses with innovative lens-coatings and Milky Way Galaxy. glass that greatly reduce internal scattered light and The new objects are an entirely new species of reflections, thereby revealing hard-to-detect structure. galaxy: large, diffuse, with much less gas and only one In observations made during 2014, Prof. Roberto percent of the stars found in galaxies like ours. The 01. Spectroscopic Abraham and his collaborators used Dragonfly to objects—dubbed UDGs for Ultra Diffuse Galaxies— observations of detect 47 extremely faint objects in the direction should disperse because they don’t appear to have the Ultra Diffuse Galaxy of the Coma Cluster, a vast collection of several mass required to hold themselves together. Instead, Dragonfly 44 confirmed it is a member of the thousand galaxies at a distance of 320 million Abraham and his colleagues think they may contain as Coma Cluster. light-years. much as 98% dark matter. Credit: P. Van Dokkum, The objects look like dwarf galaxies, a relatively It may be that Dragonfly has detected galaxies that R. Abraham, J. Brodie common type of galaxy, without spiral arms and much are not just barely visible, but are made up mostly of 02. Dragonfly smaller than the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies; invisible matter. 4 DUNLAP INSTITUTE CHIME for ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS Mapping the Universe Instrumentation Research HIME is a ground-breaking radio telescope east to west over the course of a day, CHIME Cthat will map the largest volume of space maps the entire northern sky. ever surveyed. It will provide insight into an But CHIME will also measure the redshift— epoch of the early Universe during which dark and hence distance—of distant clouds of energy first began to play an important role in the hydrogen. The result will be a three-dimensional evolution of the cosmos. map billions of light-years thick, covering half CHIME is being built in the B.C.
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