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EXPANDING UNIVERSE 2013 - 2014 ANNUAL REPORT DUNLAP INSTITUTE COLLABORATIONS for ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS

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EXPANDING UNIVERSE 2013 - 2014 ANNUAL REPORT DUNLAP INSTITUTE COLLABORATIONS for ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS EXPANDING UNIVERSE 2013 - 2014 ANNUAL REPORT DUNLAP INSTITUTE COLLABORATIONS for ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS Message from the Interim Director Prof. Peter Martin, PhD, FRSC hrough remote sensing across the electro- or of gas diffusely spread within galaxies. Tmagnetic spectrum, the astronomer’s Also imprinted in spectra is valuable challenge is not only to detect radiation, but dynamical information, revealing the collapse to extract detailed information encoded within. of gas into filaments and new stars, or the The “magnetic fingerprint” above is an rotation within an entire galaxy. The beauty interpretation resulting from such complex of the results available through decoding decoding. Through the detection of the such fingerprints is more than skin deep. polarization of the emission from cool dust This report effectively takes the pulse in the Milky Way Galaxy, the Planck Space of the Dunlap Institute. You will enjoy Telescope collaboration has teased out a record discovering that the institute is alive and well, of the large-scale orientation of our galaxy’s and thriving. Exciting new instruments are magnetic field—with all of its arches, loops coming on line. The amazing research informs and whorls. many of our teaching activities, impacting Dark lines trace the Milky students at the University of Toronto and Way Galaxy’s magnetic field around the world. Outreach activities have in this “magnetic fingerprint.” Credit: Planck Collaboration “This report effectively takes the expanded in many imaginative ways to reach an even broader public audience. pulse of the Dunlap Institute.” Through organization, hard work and Cover collaboration, the expanding roster at the As glimpsed in research highlighted elsewhere Dunlap Institute—of students, postdoctoral Prof. Shelley Wright in this annual report, polarization—a powerful fellows, staff, and faculty—is dedicated to the holds a detector used in the NIROSETI Near tool in our expanding kit—is being exploited success of our programs. Looking ahead to InfraRed Optical Search for on planetary-system-disk to cosmological the coming year, to additional personnel and ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence scales. Fundamental insights are being provided their leadership in research, instrumentation, instrument. Credit: Milky Way Galaxy image: NASA/ as well by chemical fingerprints or spectra of education and outreach, the future is bright. JPL-Caltech complex molecules in star-forming molecular clouds, of gas in exoplanet atmospheres, 4 DUNLAP INSTITUTE for ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS Message from the Dean, Faculty of Arts & Science David Cameron, FRSC 01 Dean and Professor of Political Science stronomy has unraveled secrets of the talent that is unparalleled in Canada and matched The Dunlap Institute is also extending AUniverse in its earliest moments, and taught only by top-ranked centres worldwide. the University’s reach by cementing strong us that life truly begins in the deepest depths It is innovation in astronomical partnerships with like-minded organizations of space. Discoveries about the nature of our instrumentation and observing techniques that committed to public education, and by designing world and Universe have shaped our cultures can accelerate U of T’s and Canada’s contributions and hosting large-scale events and innovative in profound and fundamental ways. Equally to expanding our understanding of the Universe. programming that brings many in the broader importantly, astronomers have driven dramatic On this front, as you will see in this annual community, young and old, to campus. The technological innovations that improve the quality report, the Dunlap Institute is making tremendous inaugural Dunlap Prize in Astronomy and of life and stimulate economic growth. For the progress—and what it has achieved in the few Astrophysics was awarded to Neil deGrasse past century, Canadian astronomers, led by U of short years it has been operational is a testament Tyson. The record high demand for his public T, have been seeking answers to fundamental to the ingenuity, passion and tenacity of our lecture—many times the capacity of Convocation questions that have perplexed humanity since the astronomers. It is a testament to their leadership Hall—is but one indication of the innate thirst for dawn of time. What is the origin of the Universe? in forging fruitful collaborations with the knowledge of the Cosmos across all generations. What is our place in the Cosmos? Is there life international astronomy community. And it is Arts & Science is in the midst of its Boundless on other planets? a testament to the belief and vision of the Dunlap campaign—through which we are seeking a U of T’s Faculty of Arts and Science is proud Family, who have supported this enterprise since major investment in highly qualified personnel in to host a top-ranked Department of Astronomy its very conception. astronomy and astrophysics, as well as in state- and Astrophysics, the nation-wide Canadian Just this past year, the Dunlap Institute of-the-art facilities and operations for research, Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics and, since launched the Long Wavelength Laboratory, teaching, public education and outreach. We want 2008, the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and designed to test and to develop microwave to empower our scientists to collaborate and find Astrophysics—a leading-edge centre for the detectors destined for the South Pole telescope answers to the most fundamental and enduring design, fabrication and implementation of as well as radio technologies critical to a new questions for humanity. In expanding our universe astronomical instrumentation, for observational generation of digital telescopes. Soon, we will of supporters, the possibilities for expanding the research, for training the next generation of be able to track both the evolution of large-scale frontiers of knowledge are truly boundless. astronomers and for public education. Together structure within the Universe and the accelerating 01. Credit: Jim Ryce. this group represents a depth and diversity of expansion of space. 1 DUNLAP INSTITUTE for ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS Instrumentation Research Expanding Our View of the Universe Artist’s rendering of a super- massive black hole like the one at the centre of the Milky Way Galaxy Credit: NASA/ CXC/A.Hobart According to analysis by Dr. Tuan Do, Prof. Shelley Wright and colleagues, the InfraRed Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) on the Thirty Meter Telescope will be able to measure the mass of massive black holes at the centres of galaxies with enough accuracy to revolutionize our understanding of these objects. Credit: TMT Observatory Corporation 2 DUNLAP INSTITUTE CHIME for ASTRONOMY & 01 ASTROPHYSICS Mapping the Universe Instrumentation Research in Four Dimensions 02 – CHIME n the interior of B.C., a team of cosmologists, What’s more, the nearest edge of this vast Iincluding the Dunlap’s Prof. Keith Vanderlinde, volume of space will be billions of light-years is building a ground-breaking radio telescope closer to Earth than the farthest edge. That means that will map the largest volume of space ever CHIME will add yet another dimension— surveyed—a three-dimensional swath of the time—to produce a “four-dimensional map” Universe that covers half the sky and is billions of the expansion and evolution of the Universe of light-years deep. over some four billion years of its early history. When completed, CHIME—the Canadian This epoch is particularly interesting because Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment— it was a time when dark energy began to play an will gather radio signals along a line in the sky important role in the evolution of the Universe. 01. Construction of the CHIME Pathfinder from the northern horizon, through the zenith, Dark energy is the enigmatic force behind one prototype was to the southern horizon. The telescope won’t of the biggest paradigm shifts in cosmology: that completed during the move, but as the Earth rotates and the sky moves the expansion of the Universe is speeding up, winter of 2013/2014. Credit: Prof. Keith overhead from east to west, CHIME will scan rather than slowing down. Vanderlinde; Dunlap the entire northern sky like a lighthouse The team includes researchers from the Institute sweeping the horizon. Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory, 02. When completed, The telescope will also measure the redshift the University of British Columbia, the CHIME will comprise of distant clouds of hydrogen, revealing their University of McGill and the University of five, 20x100 metre distances. This added dimension will turn a Toronto. Vanderlinde and his colleagues (see half-cylinders. Credit: University of British two-dimensional scan of the sky into a three- Collaborations, pg. 11) will begin building their Columbia dimensional map. four-dimensional map of the Universe in 2016. 3 DUNLAP INSTITUTE MaNGA for ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS First Light 02 on 10,000 Instrumentation Research Galaxies – MaNGA 01 01. The 2.5 metre Sloan ver five nights in March The survey—called MaNGA As part of the MaNGA team, Telescope at Apache O2014, an international or Mapping Nearby Galaxies at astronomers from the Dunlap Point Observatory focuses a section of team of astronomers began a Apache Point Observatory—collects Institute have been leading efforts the sky on a circular five-year survey with an innovative spectroscopic data from the entire to optimize fibre bundle design, plate. Bundles of spectroscope that will eventually galaxy, enabling detailed analysis develop the observing strategy, and optical fibres feed the include 10,000 galaxies. of the object as a whole. The design and test the software needed light of galaxies in that section of sky to the Spectrographs separate light telescope focuses images of galaxies to reduce the data and analyze the spectroscope. Credit: according to wavelength, revealing on hexagonal bundles of optical spectra. They include: Lead Data Dr. David Law; Dunlap a wealth of information about an fibres which feed the light to Scientist, Dr. David Law; pipeline Institute object’s chemical composition, the spectroscope. developer, Dr. Brian Cherinka; 02. A fibre collects motion, velocity, temperature and Thanks to MaNGA, the and Lead Observer, Dr.
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