TEAM RESEARCH PROJECTS (ANILLOS) IN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY AND IN ANTARCTIC SCIENCE 2009 FINAL REPORT I. PROJECT PRESENTATION PROJECT TITLE CODE Development of technologies for astronomical observations. Chile: from host to active partner in the construction of the next generation astronomical ACT-86 telescopes PROJECT DIRECTOR SIGNATURE Leonardo Vanzi MAIN INSTITUTION Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile PERIOD INFORMED Jan-2010 – Dec-2013 2 II. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This section should have no more than 3 pages written with any letter style point size 12. Summarize the updated achievements of the project including those related to research objectives, international collaboration, training activities, results dissemination to the scientific community and outreach to non-specialized public. The contents of this section are public and may be published in CONICYT’s website. This summary has to inform the potential reviewers about the progress of the project and the way these advances have come to be. Since this summary has to be available to non-experts in your area we request the use of relatively simple language or explanations when technical term do require. The objective of the project was to acquire and develop front line technologies in a number of selected areas of science and engineering to be employed in the next generation astronomical telescopes. In particular we aimed to make the participants of the project competitive in the specific fields selected and to convert them in attractive partners for the international observatories present in Chile. With this purpose we defined a number of areas and activities of interests. The participants are Departments and Institutes of the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile joint into the Center of Astro Engineering (AIUC) plus a wide network of international collaborators supporting them. The goal was pursued with the collaboration of international partners leaders in the fields selected. More specifically three main areas of work were defined in the project Anillo: - Technology. Acquire the necessary know-how and experience in a selected number of technological areas, mainly: (i) technologies for the near-infrared spectral band (NIR), (ii) adaptive optics (AO), (iii) detector read-out systems, (iv) software, data handling, computation and (v) mechanics. - Science. Provide the Chilean scientific community with the tools to carry out front line scientific research. - Outreach. Promote technological and cultural transfer to the Chilean society. Our efforts started at the AIUC and mostly focused to build experience. The specific activities developed during the project began from the plan set in the original proposal following the main lines defined and developed during the three years of the project. In some cases new work areas were opened. Due to diverse circumstances the initial three years plan of the project extended to almost four. The activity at the AIUC during this period increased considerably. We started with a small group of researchers pioneering an area that was basically absent at Universidad Católica. After four years we have a robust team, an interesting infrastructure, a solid collaboration network worldwide and we are involved in major projects. All this makes the AIUC an interesting reference for local companies and it is attracting the interest of students and young scientists. 3 As part of this project we equipped three completely new laboratories at the AIUC: - The Lab of IR technology including equipment for vacuum and cryogenics, IR detectors, read out electronics. - The optical Lab which includes a large optical bench and a variety of opto-mechanical components to arrange optical setups and testing. - The Lab of Adaptive Optics (AO) technology including a full test bench AO system, wavefront (WF) sensor , deformable mirror (DM) and atmospheric turbulence simulator We installed two fully operational instruments at the UC Observatory Santa Martina, the spectrograph PUCHEROS (Fondecyt n. 1095187) and the fast photometry camera MERLIN. Both instruments are currently in operation and are producing interesting scientific results. The project provided support to the regular operation of the Observatory and supported the development of an entirely new Telescope Control System (TCS). We developed the study of two AIUC second-generation instruments, the high-resolution spectrograph FIDEOS, an evolution of the first FIESOLE idea and the multi-band imager BOMBOLO. The construction of both instruments was funded by CONICYT through FONDEF and QUIMAL respectively. We started to develop a third idea for a NIR high-resolution spectrograph and tested its technologies in the Lab . The participation of AIUC in international projects grew from the participation in the phase A study of SIMPLE for the E-ELT to becoming members of the MOONS consortium that is currently starting the construction of the new MOS instrument for the ESO VLT. The AIUC is also part of the European HIRES initiative aimed at providing a high-resolution spectroscopic facility for the E-ELT. The AIUC is an active member of the HAT-South network, is contributing to the ACT project and is member of the G-Clef consortium for the GMT. Developing software (SW) was a relevant part of our work in the area of technology. We collaborated in this subject with external partners. As results we have the SW of the new TCS for the UC observatory telescopes (including the autoguider) and a new read out system for the IR detectors. SW development is currently our main task within the MOONS consortium. During this Anillo the Geryon clusters experienced an order of magnitude leap. During the first year, the memory of the computer was multiplied by a factor of 2 with the help of this project, and was moved to the new computing room of the AIUC. The disk capacity was also increased by a factor of a few with this project. After the acquisition of Geryon2, the new computing cluster funded primarily by BASAL PFB-06 CATA, the Anillo made an important contribution to the necessary upgrade of the acclimatization of the computing room, which was not initially designed to support the load of two combined clusters. Members of this Anillo carried along these improvements. On the administration side, the Geryon computers were open for use by all astronomers in Chilean institutions, and for this a system of tickets and a good internal organization were set up, and have proven to work reasonably well. In sum this Anillo contributed to turn a single computing cluster in a makeshift room, into a national facility, which has now gained momentum and continues to grow. 4 In terms of manpower the AIUC grew considerably during the execution of the project. The Anillo supported students working on their undergraduated, master and PhD research thesis in the area of astronomy and engineering. Three post-doc researchers were hired during the course of the project to work in the near IR Lab and on the design of new instruments. The international collaborations of the AIUC strengthened considerably during the project. In particular with the Observatory of Paris thanks to the program of occultations of minor bodies in the solar system; with the University of Tokyo through the support of the operation of miniTAO; with the University of Durham and Gemini observatory in the field of Adaptive Optics; with INAF in infrared (IR) technologies. Our team members travelled to conferences worldwide, paid visits to institutes abroad and received international guests with the support of this project Anillo. Considerable efforts have been made in the area of technological transfer. In order to contribute to the productive reality of the country, we have built a two-step process, one from the international observatories in Chile to the academy, and a second one from the academy to local industry,. We participated in a number of initiatives aimed at establishing links with the private sector and helped organize a few other. Although the local reality in this area is poor, we believe we have made our contribution, in particular with some small companies. In terms of scientific activities, the UC instruments PUCHEROS, MERLIN and the HAT South collaboration reached relevant milestones. All other projects of research met the goals of scientific production, results and publications. The scientific research was particularly active in the fields of variable stars, binary systems, the galactic bulge, clusters, exoplanets and in cosmological numerical simulations. The team maintained a high scientific productivity with 117 refereed papers published in international Journals during the period of the project. The AIUC supports a lively activity of outreach in astronomy and instrumentation in collaboration with the Institute of Astrophysics and the School of Engineering UC. One of the main outreach activities is related to the UC historic observatory Manuel Foster. During the execution of this project we managed to open the site to the public for the first time in almost two decades and are pushing hard the creation of a Museum of Astronomy at this historic site. Members of the AIUC are actively giving public lectures and are present in the education of schoolteachers and students. During the almost four years of Anillo the AIUC organized several initiatives: international workshops of instrumentation and astronomical technology and workshops for schoolteachers in collaboration with other institutions. 5 III. RESUMEN EJECUTIVO Esta sección no deberá extenderse más de 3