Report to the NSF AST Senior Review (July 2005)

NATIONAL ASTRONOMY & IONOSPHERE CENTER Operated by Cornell University under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation NAIC Science in the Twenty-First Century: Report to the NSF Senior Review El quien no ha visto el Observatorio de Arecibo no ha visto una maravilla. July 2005 NAIC Science in the Twenty-First Century: Report to the NSF Senior Review 1. Executive Summary 1 2. The Unique Role of NAIC in U.S. Astronomy 2 2.1 The “Millennium Questions” in Astrophysics 2 2.2 ALFA Surveys 3 2.3 Pulsar Timing 10 2.4 the High Sensitivity Array 11 2.5 S-Band Planetary Radar 14 2.6 SETI 18 3. NAIC Science in the Twenty-First Century: A New Model for a National Observatory 18 3.1 Partnerships in Detector and Digital Signal Processing Technology 20 3.2 Partnerships in Computation and Information Sharing Technology 21 3.3 ALFA Legacy Survey Consortia Organization 24 3.4 Management of the U.S. Square Kilometer Array Partnership for the Technology Development Project 25 4. NAIC General Facility Description 25 4.1 Overview of the Facility 25 4.2 NAIC Managing Institution and Organization 26 4.3 NAIC Funding Sources 26 4.4 Specifics of the Telescope and Instrumentation 26 4.5 New Capabilities Planned in the Next 5-10 Years 26 4.6 Science Overview 27 4.6.1 Current Forefront Scientific Programs 27 4.6.2 Major NAIC Astronomy Program Scientific Discoveries Made at the Arecibo Observatory 28 4.6.3 NAIC Astronomy Program Science Highlights of the Last Five Years 29 4.6.4 Focus on Future Astronomy Program Science Questions 29 5. Community Served by NAIC 30 5.1 NAIC Astronomy Program Proposal Statistics 30 5.2 NAIC User Statistics 32 5.3 NAIC Educational Programs for Puerto Rico 33 6. NAIC AST Funding and Scientific Effectiveness 35 6.1 NSF Funding of NAIC FY1999 – FY2005 35 6.2 Measures of Scientific Efficiency 36 7. NAIC Astronomy Program in the Future: Objectives, Priorities, Milestones and Costs 38 7.1 Objectives, Priorities and Milestones 38 7.2 Components of the NAIC Astronomy Program and Costs 39 8. Cost of Divestiture 40 9. Appendices 41 A. Dr. Wayne van Citter’s letter to Dr. Joseph Burns 41 B. List of Users and Institutions - FY2004 45 C. List of Publications - FY2004 53 D. NAIC Summer Student & REU Program Participants & Current Affiliations 62 1. Executive Summary research community to facilitate, through partnerships, advances in In March 2005, the National Science Board approved the National Science Foundation • Detector and digital signal processing (NSF) award of the Cooperative Agreement technology; for management and operation of the National • Computational capabilities and Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (NAIC) information sharing technology; to Cornell University for the 5-year period • Organizational structure of large-scale FY2006-2010. The award represents a strong research teams working collaboratively endorsement by the NSF of the primary elements on ambitious, problem-oriented, of the Cornell vision for NAIC, and the relation programs. of NAIC to the community it serves. These are being vigorously pursued by NAIC. These In so doing, NAIC strives to stimulate innovations elements are summarized in this NAIC Report at academic institutions and integrate them to the NSF Division of Astronomical Sciences rapidly into capabilities at the national center. Senior Review; together they comprise a NSF funding of NAIC is then multiplexed to prioritized plan to promote NAIC science in the benefit both academic researchers and NAIC. 21st century. The NAIC goal is to develop research initiatives with the community, not for the community. We As the managing organization for the world’s are promoting collaboration, not competition, largest single dish radio/radar telescope, the as a means to help insure that NSF astronomy 305-m Arecibo telescope, NAIC brings unique research funds are used to greatest efficiency in scientific research capabilities in several areas. the U.S. research community. These unique capabilities are described in Section 2 and include the importance of the Section 4 of this report is a concise overview Arecibo Observatory for large-scale radio of NAIC included here for readers who are surveys necessary for the study of galaxies in unfamiliar with NAIC. the nearby, z < 0.2, universe that complement on-going surveys at other wavelengths, the The recent improvements made to the optical importance of pulsar discoveries and timing of system of the Arecibo telescope, and the routine millisecond pulsars as tools for the exploration of availability of the ALFA multibeam receiver that extreme states of matter and general relativity, greatly speeds up large-area sky surveys, has the unique NAIC capability for radar imaging of led to a tremendous increase in the demand for near Earth asteroids, and the enormous impact observing time on the telescope. We discuss the Arecibo telescope has on high-sensitivity the proposal and user statistics in Section 5. VLBI observations. We emphasize the recently- We note with pride that the FY2005 proposal implemented, unique, capability of the Arecibo oversubscription, averaged over all LST telescope to perform commensal observations intervals, make the Arecibo telescope the most in which two or more research groups process oversubscribed telescope funded by the NSF the same astronomical signal simultaneously for Division of Astronomical Sciences. The LST different scientific objectives thereby multiplying range of greatest oversubscription for the Arecibo the research utility of the Arecibo telescope by telescope at the two most recent proposal two or more. Searches for transient astronomical deadlines exceeds that of any telescope in radio sources and for possible beacons from astronomy, including that of the Hubble Space other civilizations are enabled by the commensal Telescope. Commensal observing is allowing us capability in a way that does not require assigned to deal with this oversubscription rationally. observing time. A short description of the public education In Section 3 of this report we highlight the program, and public visitor statistics, are also emphasis we place at NAIC on maintaining our included in Section 5. We highlight the fact that programmatic support of the U.S. academic Cornell University built a Visitor Center in 1997 NSF SENIOR REVIEW - JULY 2005 1 for NAIC at the Arecibo Observatory to serve our An estimate of the cost of divestiture of the community of neighbors and friends in Puerto elements of the NAIC astronomy program and Rico, as well as visitors to the island; this is now the appendices conclude this report to the Senior one of the most-visited attractions on the island. Review. Approximately 120,000 people visit the Arecibo Observatory annually: this number exceeds the 2. The Unique Role of NAIC in U.S. annual number of public visitors to all other NSF- Astronomy supported observatories combined. Perhaps surprisingly, NAIC receives no financial support 2.1 The “Millennium Questions” in from the NSF Division of Astronomical Sciences Astrophysics for operation of the Visitor Center or for the public education program at the Arecibo Observatory. The scientific objectives provided as consensus priorities by the astrophysics community in the We discuss telescope efficiency metrics in two reports, Astronomy and Astrophysics in Section 6, and in particular we argue that an the New Millennium (2001), and Connecting efficiency metric is properly a cost/benefit ratio Quarks with the Cosmos (2003), express where both cost and benefit need to be defined a common theme: the primary concern in and discussed. At NAIC, we note that over the our future research must be to connect our past six years NSF funds to support Arecibo understanding of fundamental physics more Observatory costs have been very scarce. In firmly with our understanding of the universe the FY2000 to FY2005 period when the NSF and its many elements. These “Millennium Division of Astronomical Sciences budget grew Questions” express the concern that our current from $118M to $200M, an increase of $82M or understanding may be too phenomenological to nearly 70%, the budget of NAIC grew by only allow us to progress much further. For example, $500k, an increase of only 4%. The cumulative we know that the dynamics of disk galaxies effect of inflation over these 6 years was 16%. are determined by dark matter that occupies As the NSF Senior Review focuses its attention the same general space as the galaxies, and it on the prospect of flat funding at the NSF for interacts gravitationally with the normal baryonic the next several years, it is appropriate to matter constituting galaxies, but we have no idea bear in mind that NAIC has had to deal with what that dark matter is. To understand galaxy essentially flat funding for the past six years, the dynamics on a more fundamental level, we need most expansive six-year period in the history of to compute the coupling between the two types the NSF. In addition, we stress that the NAIC of matter, no detailed computations are entirely scientific and educational programs are unique reliable with our present knowledge. This is just assets that are properly viewed as performance one example. The phenomenon we call “dark metrics, for without them the capabilities they energy” is even more of a mystery. And, in many represent would either be lost entirely or would ways, our understanding of gravity will benefit by have to be re-created at substantial expense in further observational support. some other way. Given such uncertainties, the community’s sense Section 7 is a vision of the future that sets of priorities is a statement of urgency for more forth NAIC astronomy program priorities, both concerted effort on fundamental processes that, near-term and long-range. It establishes presumably, apply throughout the universe.

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