NATIONAL ASTRONOMY & IONOSPHERE CENTER Operated by Cornell University under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS and ASTRONOMICAL SCIENCES 2006 PROGRESS REPORT 2007 PROGRAM PLAN Students at the University of Texas, Brownsille control the Arecibo telescope from their remote control center. March 2007 NATIONAL ASTRONOMY & IONOSPHERE CENTER Operated by Cornell University under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS and ASTRONOMICAL SCIENCES 2006 PROGRESS REPORT 2007 PROGRAM PLAN March 2007 Cooperative Agreement No. AST-0431904 Table of Contents1 Section 1 Introduction and Overview 1 Section 2 Annual Progress Summary 2 2.1 Summary of Achievements in PY2006 2 2.2 Problems Encountered, Solutions and Impact 7 2.3 List of Observing Programs, Investigators, and Hours - PY 2006 8 2.4 Visiting Public at the Observatory 27 Section 3 Accomplishments and Plans of the NAIC Scientific Staff 27 3.1 Cosmology 27 3.2 Early Galaxies 28 3.3 Active Galaxies 28 3.4 Normal Galaxies and Clusters 29 3.5 Intergalactic Gas and Tidal Remnants 30 3.6 Milky Way Galaxy 31 3.7 Pulsars 33 3.8 Solar System 33 3.9 Fundamental Physics 37 Section 4 Technical Accomplishments and Expectations 38 4.1 Radio Astronomy Instrumentation 38 4.2 IF/LO System 40 4.3 Backends 41 4.4 Computing: Storage and Networking 42 Section 5 NAIC Education and Outreach Programs 43 5.1 Angel Ramos Visitor Center 43 5.2 2006 REU Program 46 5.3 Connecting to Arecibo 52 5.4 ALFALFA Visiting Scientists 52 Section 6 Arecibo Observatory Publications - PY2006 54 Section 7 NAIC External Federal Funding and Active Subcontracts 65 Section 8 Division of Effort for Staff 67 Section 9 NAIC Organization Chart and Description 71 9.1 Management Plan: Organization Charts 71 9.2 Vitae of New Professional Staff 74 1 The contents, headings and order of topics presented here are as specified in the NAIC Coopertative Agreement. Table of Contents continued Section 10 Status Report and Plan for PY2007 75 10.1 Scientific Plans 75 10.2 Technical Plans 87 10.3 Major Project Plans 92 10.4 Operational Changes in Response to the Senior Review Recommendations for NAIC 93 Section 11 Long Range Report and Plan 95 11.1 Major Program Goals and Emphasis 95 11.2 Risk Factors Affecting Program Goals 96 11.3 Management, Contractual, Financial and Technical Issues 97 11.4 Requirements for Support of the Scientific Community 99 Section 12 Budget Report 103 APPENDIX A: Committees 107 tools, to the much wider astronomical community. 1. Introduction and Overview • Routine scheduling of “commensal” observations, simultaneous observa- tions done by two or more academic research groups with different scientific The National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center objectives, each processing the same as- (NAIC) radio/radar telescope located in Arecibo, tronomical signal with its own purpose- Puerto Rico, is the instrument that provides more specific spectrometer; collecting area—more “light gathering power”—for • Completion of the engineering design centimeter-wave radio science than any competi- phase of two new spectrometers, the tive telescope in the world. Operated as a national EALFA spectrometer, designed to en- research facility by Cornell University for the Na- able sensitive spectroscopy of atomic tional Science Foundation (NSF), the Arecibo tele- hydrogen in galaxies to z = 0.2, and the scope in fact provides nearly three times the col- PALFA spectrometer that will triple the lecting area of all the other NSF-sponsored radio analyzed bandwidth used for pulsar telescopes combined. The sheer physical size of searches and timing. Contracts for fab- the Arecibo telescope makes it a uniquely powerful rication of the two new spectrometers research instrument. Unique also to the Arecibo have been let with delivery expected in Observatory is the program of research supported the first quarter of calendar year 2007. by the telescope and the diversity of interests of the • Completion of the contract to clean and scientific user community it serves. Operation of the paint all of the structural steel on the Arecibo Observatory to satisfy the requirements of telescope platform to remove accumu- this interdisciplinary user community is the primary lated corrosion and millscale, and to ap- responsibility of the scientists, engineers and staff ply a coating specifically selected to pro- of the NAIC. Management of NAIC as a national tect the steel for at least 20 years. facility is provided by Cornell University under a Co- 2 operative Agreement with the NSF . In PY2007 the emphasis at NAIC is on making the programmatic and personnel changes necessary Described in this PY2007 NAIC Annual Progress for NAIC to function well at the lower funding level Report and Program Plan (APRPP) are the major recommended by the Senior Review, and to devel- achievements of the past program year, the plans op new scientific partnerships with the NAIC user to meet the major challenges of PY2007, and an community for archiving survey data and making outline of NAIC priorities that inform its long-range the data products accessible for data mining. The planning. highlights include: Highlights of the NAIC achievements in PY2006 de- • Tailoring Observatory services to the scribed in this APRPP include: ALFA survey consortia to the down- stream needs of data archiving and data • Completion of the first year of obser- access through involvement with the vations made by two of the legacy sky Virtual Observatory. In the cost-con- surveys to be done with the Arecibo L- strained environment at NAIC imposed band Feed Array (ALFA) by community- by the reduced funding recommended based ALFA consortia. Scientific results by the Senior Review, this means that published and submitted for publication the data archiving and data access sup- from both the PALFA pulsar survey, and port comes at the expense of services the ALFALFA survey of HI in galaxies in provided to the consortia in the data-tak- the local (z < 0.1) universe, demonstrate ing phase of their survey work. the fruitfulness of the survey programs. They also create data products that are • Using the recommendations of the Are- accessible on-line, and useful as research cibo Users and Scientific Advisory Com- mittee (AUSAC) to develop telescope 2 Cooperative Agreement No. AST-0431904 between the National scheduling procedures that assure the Science Foundation, Arlington, VA 22230 and Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 14853, dated October 1, 2005. survey programs receive the time an- NAIC APRPP 2007 1 nually they require for their successful NAIC Arecibo Observatory. There were more us- execution, and the traditional common- ers of the NAIC facilities at the Arecibo Observa- user programs maintain full access to tory, more prospective users proposing to use the the telescope and to Observatory user facilities, more students involved with the research support services. at NAIC, and more publications from research at • Assuring that the staff reductions im- NAIC than at any time in the past. posed by the Senior Review are accom- panied by a commensurate reduction in Science Achievement Highlights. NAIC sup- the scope of Observatory tasks so that ports a multidisciplinary science program with re- the burden on the Observatory support search facilities for passive radio astronomy, active staff members remains manageable for radio astronomy done using radar transmitters at each individual. 430 MHz and 2300 MHz to illuminate solar system objects, and upper atmospheric research. In the On the longer term, priorities with a 5-year or great- astronomy program, recent science highlights in- er horizon include (a) organization of academic re- clude: searchers to specify the scientific and technical re- quirements for a comprehensive search for sources • Best limits ever achieved on dipolar of transient cosmic radio emission; (b) organization gravitational wave emission. Pulsar of academic researchers to specify the scientific J1738+0333 is a 5.85-ms object in a bi- and technical requirements for an incoherent scat- nary system with an orbital period of 8.5 ter ionospheric radar facility to be located at the hours; the companion object is a white Arecibo magnetic conjugate point in Argentina; dwarf. High precision timing of the and (c) refinement of the U.S. participatory role in pulsar orbital dynamics reveals that the the international Square Kilometer Array project. orbit is decaying due to dipolar gravita- tional wave emission at a rate of 4.4 x As a NSF National Center, the NAIC shares in the 10-14 s/s, a value that is exactly consistent NSF mission: To promote the progress of science; with that expected from General Rela- to advance the national health, prosperity, and tivity. This is the most precise measure- welfare; to secure the national defense; and for ment ever made of the effect of dipolar other purposes3. Over the years the phrase “other gravitational wave emission. purposes” has been defined by Congressional ac- • Frequency structure has been observed tion to include (1) fostering the interchange of sci- in pulses from the Crab Nebula pulsar entific and engineering information nationally and that is unresolved with a sampling rate internationally; (2) supporting the development of of 0.4 nanoseconds; the corresponding computer and other methodologies; and (3) ad- physical size of the emission region must dressing issues of equal opportunity in science and be less than 13 cm, about the size of a engineering. The NAIC PY2007 Program Plan fully grapefruit. This is, by far, the smallest embraces all these goals with the suite of programs astronomical object, a plasma cloud or and community support outlined in this APRPP. plasma interaction region, ever detect- ed beyond the solar system. During its short lifetime, the blasts of radio emis- sion from the region have a luminosity that exceeds 10 percent of the total lu- 2.