1. The PILOT Design Study Will Saunders, Peter Gillingham, Andrew McGrath, Roger Haynes, AAO John Storey, Jon Lawrence, UNSW ASA, July 2008

2. PILOT overview Pathfinder for an International Large Optical Telescope
– First major Optical/Infrared telescope in Antarctica – Proposed as joint Australian/European facility – To be sited at Dome C (3250m, 123E 75S) – First light – 2.5 metre Optical/Infrared telescope – NCRIS-funded design study now almost complete – Twin science and pathfinder role
Dome C
3250m altitude
“Australia’s top priorities for new infrastructure funding this decade are to commence 10% participation in the SKA and an ELT, maintain 20% access to 8-m class optical/infrared telescopes, continue operations of the AAO and Australia Telescope, and carry out the PILOT program.” Decadal Plan, 2006

3. Why Antarctica? 0.2" Compared with best temperate sites:
Free atmospheric seeing  2-3
 median seeing ~0.27" above 60m
 best < 0.1"
Isoplanatic angle  2-3
Coherence timescale  2-3
Scintillation noise  3-4
Thermal IR backgrounds 
Precipitable Water Vapour  4
Cloud  2
Sky/telescope
backgrounds
104
10-6
Jy/"2 1 10 μm
CP 0.8"
DC 5.4"
CP 3.4 ms
DC 0.27"
CP 2.5"
DC 7.0 ms
Seeing
Coherence
timescale
Isoplanatic
angle 10 40 μm 1
Transparency 2 3

4. Why Dome C? Existing Concordia French/Italian station
Well-characterised site
Regular traverse route
Can see geostationary satellites
Low Auroral emission
Relatively high sky coverage 4

5. Why Australia?
No good O/IR astronomical sites No space program Proximity History of Antarctic Astronomy Large Antarctic Program Australian Antarctic Territory
Hobart ●
Dome C ●
● Casey

6. Why 2.5m? AO D/r0 ~ 1 at 2.4μm – diffraction-limited with fast guiding
– optimal size for fast guiding
Available from multiple vendors
– reduced timecales, cost and risk
Limit for passive support and ion-polishing
Limit for convenient shipping
Allows world-beating science
Tip-Tilt
Natural seeing
D/r0=1
D/r0=4 6

7. Temperature vs time and height for 1 day
Antarctic 'Challenges'
Seeing
vs height
 Temperature -85°C to -30°  Humidity ~150%  Diamond dust (Ice crystals)  Very turbulent and variable surface layer up to ~60m  dT/dt up to 10°C/hour  dT/dZ = 0.2-1°C/m  Less dark time?  Less sky coverage  Limited real-time data transfer  Inaccessible in winter
100m
-80
-30 C
Temperature
vs height
235 K
200
Temperature vs time and height for 1 day

8. PILOT Design Overview
– 2.5 metre Ritchey-Chrétien telescope – Twin f/10 Nasmyth foci – Infrared optimised, but can use 0.35μm-350μm – Diffraction-limited optics over 1° field – Wide-field pixel scale matched to median free seeing – Diffraction limited imaging over small fields at all wavelengths > 0.5μm – Fast tip-tilt secondary – f/1.5 meniscus Zerodur primary, actively ventilated – Active ventilation of mirror and telescope main structure – Installed on a 30m tower to get above ground layer – Enclosure for temperature and humidity control – 24 hour remote operation with minimal human intervention Optics, thermal differentials, windshake, guiding, must all be twice as good as other terrestrial telescopes to do justice to the site

9. Tower
– Get above worst of turbulent layer – Reduce air temperature gradient – But ~15°C warmer – Also windier, median ~7m/s – Lowest mode 2-3Hz – Windshake < 0.25", will clean up with tip-tilt – Probably aluminium – Assembled and built at site 1 year before telescope arrives
Windshake

10. PILOT with air
T=-48C
150mg/m3
150% RH
T=-53C
75mg/m3
75% RH
+5
Must protect telescope from: (a) diamond dust (b) frost – 150% RH (c) wind shake (d) temperature gradient Put telescope in dome, aperture as small as possible, ventilate continuously with dry air warmed to same temperature as aperture Also ventilate primary mirror, to (a) speed up thermalisation and (b) allow temperature differences 1C or more
ΔT (°C) 1 3 2

11. Delivered image quality
Tip-tilt removes most windshake and residual ground-layer turbulence. Using balloon or MASS/SNODAR values makes little difference to delivered image quality. Budget for entire PILOT system is 0.2" d80 (~0.13" FWHM) Median delivered wide-field image quality ~0.3" for izYJHK Median delivered narrow-field image quality < 0.25" for izYJHK

12. Sensitivities Band λ (μm) Point Source AB, 5 σ, 1hr g 0.475 27.6 r
0.62
27.1 i
0.76
26.7 z
0.91
25.8 Y
1.04
25.5 J
1.21
25.0 H
1.65
24.6 Kd
2.35
25.3 L
3.76
21.2 M
4.66
19.6
Optical sensitivity comparable with 8m. Greatest sensitivity gains over temperate sites at K,L,M, and mid-infrared. At K, background is times less than best temperate sites, image quality 2-3 times as good. =>70 times faster than VISTA to given depth, 10 times faster than seeing-limited 8-m. Only possibility to get NIR data of resolution and depth comparable to big optical surveys. Only possibility to get high resolution matching photometry for Spitzer warm mission ( μm). No comparison with JWST, but JWST takes 50 hrs/deg2 just for slewing => wide-field

13. Science Drivers for PILOT:
Science drivers must be driven by at least one of: – resolution over wide fields – low IR background – photometric stability – continuous coverage Four identified big science drivers so far: – H2 in our Galaxy – The first light in the Universe – The earliest stellar populations – The equation of state of the Universe

14. Proposed Instrumentation
1. Fast optical camera, μm, 0.02"/pix, 20" x 20". Diffraction-limited imaging over small fields. 2. Wide-field MIR camera, 10-40μm, 1"/pix, 10' x 10', grisms/Fabry-Perot filter, R>10,000. Terahertz? 3. Wide-field NIR camera: 1-5μm, 0.15"/pix, 4K x 4K, 11'x11'. Also allows narrow-field diffraction limited zYJHK imaging: 1-2.5μm, 0.06"/pix, 4'x4'. 4. Wide-field Optical camera, μm, 0.08"/pix, 32K x 32K, 40' x 40'. Orthogonal Transfer Array CCDs? Overall, allows both wide-field and diffraction-limited imaging from 0.4μm - 40μm.

15. Science Driver: Galactic ecology
Molecular clouds are stellar nurseries, but H2 very hard to detect directly. Best lines in mid-infrared, but sensitivity from ground is very poor. Use Fabry-Perot filter to carry out survey of H2 0-0 S(1) & S(2) 12+17µm lines (ground state lines of molecular hydrogen). Use phase shift to build up velocity cube with ~10km/s  2" resolution. Will detect AV=1 clouds to < 200K, enough to map surfaces of normal MC's Can do 12μm during daytime
S(1) 160K
17.0µm
S(2) 185K
12.3µm
AV=1

16. Science Driver: Highest redshift stellar populations
Spitzer warm mission will cover large areas at 3.6μm+4.5μm (7500 hours). Need K-band data to find 4000Ǻ break at z>6. Too hard for VISTA. PILOT survey speed comparable to Spitzer. Takes few hundred Myear to develop 4000Ǻ break. Detection at z~6-7 pushes => galaxy formation at z>10 Re-ionisation epoch, Population III. Expect gals Can maybe get 3μm data with PILOT
PILOT Kdark
Spitzer
VLT
K-band

17. Science Driver: First light in the Universe Pair-Instability SuperNovae at z>10
SN2006gy brightest ever detected Metal-poor, Pair-Instability SuperNova Expect similar supernovae from Pop III Can see 250Msol in 1 hour at Kd to z=15 Expect to see few/year VISTA not sensitive enough JWST FOV too small (~1/deg2)

18. 0.5" FWHM
0.1"FWHM
Science Driver: Equation of State of the Universe via a large weak lensing survey
– Measures evolution of equation of state of Universe, hence nature of Dark Energy – Most promising route to understanding Dark Energy (NASA, NSF, ESA…) – Need large sky coverage, very stable PSF, resolution limited – Antarctica gives fold advantage – As good as DUNE and much sooner
0.7"
0.3"
0.3"

19. Other science:
– Lensing masses for South Pole Telescope S-Z clusters – Near-field cosmology - g-K colours for ~109 stars in Milky Way and nearby galaxies – Star formation rate of the Universe via type II SN rate – Star cluster astroseismology – Exoplanet secondary transits – Microlensing by ice-giant and terrestrial planets – H2 surveys of nearby galaxies – Pop III Gamma Ray Burst followup in K,L,M – Lucky imaging - Hubble from the ground – Source finder for GMT/JWST spectroscopy – Your idea here – Breakout session Tuesday lunchtime – PILOT science case poster
PILOT 4 hrs

20. Beyond PILOT WHAT? GMT-A LAPCAT
In general, can always do Adaptive Optics to < ½ the wavelength in Antarctica. So highest resolution is always comparable to telescope with twice the diameter At Kd (only), sensitivity is greater than a telescope with twice the diameter 8m-class telescope would be more sensitive and MUCH faster surveying than ELT at K Competitive with JDEM (ex SNAP), similar timescale 20m-class telescope meets many original goals of OWL (Originally Was Larger)
GMT-A
LAPCAT