UMass Amherst astronomers to benefit from new camera for space imaging

University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst) and Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica (INAOE) astronomers are working on a joint project to build TolTEC, a state-of-the-art millimeter-wavelength polarimetric camera for studying space.
 
“It’s hard to grasp the increased capabilities,” UMass Amherst’s Grant Wilson, who is leading the project, said.

The camera will be part of the Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT) on Mexico’s Sierra Negra.

“The combination of the new camera and the LMT requires a new outlook on what types of investigations are possible,” Wilson said. “Our observations, coupled with pioneering theoretical work carried out by astronomers, such as Stella Offner at UMass Amherst, have the potential to finally unlock some of the hardest to observe phenomena in the birth of new stars.”
 
Funded through a $6.1 million National Science Foundation grant, the project involves researchers from Arizona State University, Northwestern University, the University of Michigan, the University of Wisconsin, Cardiff University, Wales, and the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology, in addition to UMass Amherst and INAOE.
 
“Currently, our census of dust-obscured star formation activity in galaxies is severely incomplete, especially in the distant universe,” Deputy Project Scientist Alexandra Pope, of UMass Amherst, said. “With TolTEC on the LMT, we will be able to make a complete census of dust-obscured star formation activity in galaxies over 13 billion years of cosmic time. We will also study how their environment is driving galaxies’ evolution.”