ATUC Meeting, 14 Oct 2010, Astro Issues George Hobbs

Introduction Note: This is based on a presentation prepared by Robert Braun. His original presentation will be made available. Overview of the astrophysics group Science highlights from Parkes, Mopra, Narrabri and ASKAP Other highlights Notes on the Parkes receiver systems See Simon’s talk for science highlights from ASKAP (Thanks to Kate, Rob, Jill and Baerbel for helping me prepare this talk) CSIRO ATUC, Astro Issues

The astrophysics group Current staff : R. Braun, S. Breen, K. Brooks, S. Brown, J. Caswell, P. Diamond, R. Ekers, B. Emonts, I. Feain, J. Green, L. Harvey-Smith, G. Hobbs, S. Johnston, R. Jurek, M. Keith, B. Koribalski, E. Lenc, R. Manchester, N. McClure-Griffiths, R. Norris, S. O’Sullivan, J. Rathborne, D. Schnitzeler & J. Urquhart (24) Welcome to: S. Breen, L. Harvey-Smith and J. Rathborne 33 current students Recent postdoc acceptance: R. Shannon (starting next week), M. Keith, S. Burke-Spolaor, J. Grant … 8 postdocs and permanent positions currently being advertised on the AAS (closing 15th Nov) CSIRO ATUC, Astro Issues

Summary of science highlights Detection of CO 2-1 emission at high red-shift Observation of the Sunyaev-Zel’Dovich effect Discovery of new pulsars and a magnetar Wide-area molecular mapping of NH 3 and H 2 O masers Improved determination of the Jovian system mass Bursting 'bubbles' the origin of galactic gas clouds Observational limits on UHE neutrinos Observational limits on gravitational wave sources First science with an ASKAP antenna … Apologies for all the work carried out by the astrophysics group on Australian and International telescopes that I’ve missed off … CSIRO ATUC, Astro Issues

Science highlights from ATCA Detection of CO 2-1 emission (~ 40 GHz) in a z = 4.76 SMG Coppin et al. 2010, MNRAS CSIRO ATUC, Astro Issues Lunaska experiment observational limits on UHE neutrinos from Centaurus A and the Galactic Centre James et al. 2010, MNRAS High angular resolution of the Sunyaev- Zel’Dovich effect … Massardi et al. 2010

Science highlights from Parkes Measuring the Mass of Solar System Planets Using Pulsar Timing – Yardley et al. 2010, ApJ CSIRO ATUC, Astro Issues Measuring the Mass of Solar System Planets Using Pulsar Timing - Champion et al. 2010, ApJ A radio loud magnetar in X-ray quiescence, Levin et al. 2010, MNRAS Bursting bubbles the origin of galactic gas clouds – press release

The “Nessie” Nebula: Cluster Formation in a filamentary Infrared Dark Cloud Very filamentary infrared dark cloud (aspect ratio 150:1) Mapped with Mopra: OTF, zoom mode, 16 lines at 90 GHz, 0.11 km s -1 HNC (1–0) emission Excellent morphological match to the mid-IR extinction Same radial velocity  Nessie is a single, coherent cloud and not the chance alignment of multiple unrelated clouds along the line of sight Multiple dense, compact molecular cores every ~4.5pc If turbulence pressure dominates, core spacing matches theory (cores can form within a cylinder at regular intervals via the “sausage” fluid instability) Jackson, Finn, Chambers, Rathborne, Simon, 2010, ApJL 1.2 degrees 0.2 degs High-mass star formation arises from the fragmentation of filamentary IRDCs

Use of international facilities CSIRO ATUC, Astro Issues Astronomers find cause of "dicky tickers"

The astrophysics group and outreach activities CSIRO ATUC, Astro Issues I. Faein and R. Hollow G. Hobbs, R. Hollow, J. Khoo, D. Yardley, M. Mao … Citizen science projects: R. Norris, R. Hollow …

CSIRO ATUC, Astro Issues CASS Radio Astronomy School 2010 CASS RAS 2010 very successful Excellent turn-out of 45 students Very positive feed-back RAS 2011 in Parkes

CSIRO ATUC, Astro Issues Parkes 50 th Anniversary Activities in 2011 Parkes “Golden Anniversary” Booklet On sale at the Visitor Centre from 1 December 2010 Open Weekend 8 & 9 October 2011 Possible public concert, etc. Dignitary Event on 30 October 2011 Commemorative monument “unveiling” Science Symposium 31 Oct – 3 Nov % history, 80% science is planned mix

CSIRO ATUC, Astro Issues Parkes FE & BE Systems Rationalisation Working group discussions Carretti, Edwards, Hobbs, Braun “Ideal” front-end Suite Phase-array-feed-low: MHz x 30 beams BW=1GHz Wide-band single-pixel feed options: GHz, BW=8GHz & 3-12 GHz, BW=8GHz Concentric ( plus 1.8-5) & ( plus 5-12 GHz), BW=8GHz MB(/PAF-)high: 5-12, GHz x 30 beams, BW=8GHz. All FE in focus cabin, no more receiver changes Consider new FEs and upgrades in this framework

CSIRO ATUC, Astro Issues Parkes FE & BE Systems Rationalisation “Ideal” BE “Single Digital Back-end” fully configurable in software Unlikely to be viable in short term Short-term BE developments Decommission BEs superseded by DFB3, DFB4, APSR, BPSR WBC, AFB, CPSR2, DFB2, DAS Enhanced multi-beam correlator possibilities to replace MBCORR BPSR-based (ARC request pending) ASKAP board based

Conclusion For the “official” slides see Robert’s presentation ADS search for “Parkes”, “Australia Telescope Compact Array”, “ATCA”, “Mopra” and “ASKAP” in abstract since April 2010 Astrogroup members since April 2010: 145 papers with 279 citations: “ The First Fermi Large Area Telescope Catalog of Gamma-ray Pulsars ” CSIRO ATUC, Astro Issues Abstract search phraseNumber of papersTotal citations Parkes3654 Australia Telescope National Facility 3830 Mopra119 ASKAP91 (Jodrell Bank)41 (Westerbork)2016 (Arecibo)6734