Collaborative Research: Astronomy with CARMA

University Of Chicago, Chicago IL

Investigators

Abstract

The Combined Array for Research in Millimeter Astronomy (CARMA) was formed from the merger of three telescope arrays supported by the Division of Astronomical Science's University Radio Observatories (URO) Program: Caltech's Owens Valley Radio Observatory (OVRO) array of six 10.4-meter-diameter telescopes, the Berkeley Illinois Maryland Association (BIMA) array of nine 6.1-meter-diameter telescopes, and the University of Chicago's Sunyaev-Zeldovitch Array of eight 3.5-meter-diameter telescopes. CARMA currently achieves resolutions as high as 0.2 arcseconds at a wavelength of 1mm and, due to its heterogeneous combination of telescope diameters, provides excellent imaging over a wide range of angular scales. Science enabled by CARMA covers a broad range of astronomical topics, including star formation and molecular clouds, studies of external galaxies, and the investigation of solar system objects. CARMA is a pathfinder for the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) and a pipeline for training experts in the field of millimeter interferometry to take full advantage of ALMA's capabilities for US astronomy. Users outside the CARMA collaboration receive 30% of all observing time.