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FOCUS ON THE FUTURE:

Transforming the U.S. Ground-Based O/IR System

Report to the NSF Senior Review July 29, 2005

CONTENTS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY................................................................................................................ 1 1 SCIENCE OPPORTUNITIES................................................................................................... 4

1.1 The New O/IR Astronomy, 4 1.2 Dark Energy, 7 1.3 Galaxy Formation and Evolution, 9 1.4 Origin of Planetary Systems, 14 1.5 Multi-wavelength Science and Support of Space Astronomy, 17

2 THE O/IR SYSTEM 2005–2015 ............................................................................................... 19

2.1 Idea of the System, 19 2.2 NOAO Roles in the System, 19 2.3 Capabilities Needed in an Effective System, 20 2.4 Current Status of the System, 20 2.5 Evolution to 2011, 35 2.6 Risks, 36

3 NOAO AND THE DECADAL SURVEY INITIATIVES ........................................................ 38

3.1 A GSMT in the JWST Era, 38 3.2 The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), 39 3.3 Partner and Developer of the National Virtual Observatory (NVO), 41

4 NOAO BEYOND 2011 ............................................................................................................. 43

4.1 NOAO as Partner in the System of Ground-based Facilities, 43 4.2 NOAO as the Ongoing Entry Point to the System of O/IR Facilities, 46 4.3 NOAO as the Catalyst for Developing the System Beyond 2020, 46 4.4 NOAO Education and Public Outreach in 2011 and Beyond, 47

5 TRANSITION MANAGEMENT PLAN .................................................................................. 51

5.1 Boundary Conditions, 51 5.2 Solution, 51 5.3 Robustness, 54 5.4 Opportunities, 54 5.5 Accomplishments, 55

NATIONAL OPTICAL ASTRONOMY OBSERVATORY

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6 PERFORMANCE INDICATORS AND PROGRAM METRICS ............................................ 56

6.1 Public Access and Observing Support, 56 6.2 Broad Science Program and Strong Scientific Staff, 60 6.3 NOAO’s Support of Decadal Survey Initiatives, 62 6.4 Leadership in Development of New Telescopes, Instruments, and Data Products, 62 6.5 Public/Private Partnerships and Collaborations, 64 6.6 Science Education, Training, and Public Outreach, 64

REFERENCES CITED...................................................................................................................... 66 ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS .......................................................................................... 68 APPENDIXES A ADDITIONAL FINANCIAL DATA B COMMUNITY COMMENT ON SENIOR REVIEW C PARTNERS AND TENANTS ON KITT PEAK

Science Publications, Abstracts, and Graduate Theses Based on Data from NOAO “Tenant” Telescopes, C–3

D LETTERS FROM PARTNERS IN NOAO FACILITIES AND OWNERS OF TENANT

TELESCOPES

J. Steiner, President, on Behalf of the Board of Directors, SOAR, Inc., D–1 J. Peoples on Behalf of the Dark Energy Survey Consortium, D–3 W. van Altena, President, on Behalf of the WIYN, Inc. Board of Directors, D–5 J. Halpern, Director, MDM Observatory, D–7 S. Veilleux, Director, Maryland-NOAO Collaboration and L. Mundy, Chair, Department

of Astronomy, University of Maryland, D–8 R. Gelderman, Department of Astronomy, Western Kentucky University, on Behalf of

the Robotically Controlled Telescope (RCT) Consortium, D–10 T. Oswalt, Vice Provost for Research, Florida Institute of Technology, and Chairman of

the Southeastern Association for Research in Astronomy (SARA), D–11

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Scientific opportunity in optical/infrared astronomy is as high today as it has ever been. The physics of the expansion of the Universe is within our grasp, as are galaxy formation and evolution, star formation, and the evolution of planetary systems. NOAO’s responsibility is to manage the evolution of the O/IR observing system so that these opportunities can be realized in the climate of flat NSF budgets expected in the years 2005–2011.

In this submission to the Division of Astronomical Sciences Review of Senior Facilities, we detail the scientific opportunities that can be realized if the path recommended in the recently-issued report of the O/IR Long-range Planning Committee is followed.1 We also describe the valuable science that would be lost if KPNO and CTIO were removed from NOAO’s existing system of facilities. In Section 5 of this document, we present a transition management plan for NOAO facilities that not only maximizes scientific opportunities, but also capitalizes on the investment of NSF resources already made in the NOAO program.

NOAO proposes to divest 50% shares of the Mayall, Blanco, and 2.1 meter telescopes to operating partners in order to complete the re-distribution of resources to decadal survey initiatives shown in Figure 1. The national observatory will itself become a public-private partnership, with equal support from each sector for the 1–4 meter telescopes that are essential for effective use of the Gemini telescopes, their siblings in the U.S. system, and the emerging new generation of facilities.

We make this proposal in support of the most recent decadal survey, Astronomy and Astrophysics in the New Millennium (AANM, 2001), in which the Astronomy and Astrophysics Survey Committee (AASC) envisioned revolutionary advances over the next ten to twenty years in our understanding of such fundamental questions as: how large-scale structure emerged from the density fluctuations imprinted during the Big Bang; how the first stars and galaxies were formed and how the simple galactic morphologies we observe today came to be; and how planetary systems form and evolve and how frequently planets amenable to life emerge.

The optimism expressed in the AASC report derives primarily from the enormous progress already made over the past two decades, thanks to advances in detector technology and computational power, the launching of NASA’s Great Observatories, and the development of a suite of powerful new 8–10-m class ground-based telescopes. The authors of the decadal survey were confident that the pace of progress could be sustained, and indeed accelerated, via imaginative combinations of private and federal investment in critical next generation facilities.

An “effective national observatory” was viewed as central to this vision. The AASC thus challenged NOAO to become that observatory, specifically recommending that NOAO:

(1) Work in partnership with the community and the private observatories to exploit the unique strength of the U.S. astronomical community—i.e., the large-scale private as well as public investment in major facilities—in order to achieve the design and construction of the next generation of ground-based telescopes.

(2) Take a leading role in shepherding the evolution of the complex “system” of U.S. public and private telescopes so that creative scientists throughout the U.S. community can continue to have access to the full range of facilities and capabilities required to carry out world-leading research.

1 “Strategies for Evolution of U.S. Optical/Infrared Facilities: Recommendations of the O/IR Long-range Planning Committee,” July 2005, http://www.noao.edu/dir/lrplan/strategies-final.pdf

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NOAO enthusiastically embraced this challenge and beginning in 2001, undertook a rapid evolution from an observatory largely focused on operating and providing access to its own facilities (including U.S. access to the Gemini telescopes), to an institution that by 2005 had achieved such notable results as:

Participation in a broad community- and interagency-based partnership to build a Large-aperture Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), a facility that promises breakthrough contributions to our understanding of dark matter and dark energy; opening of the time domain and thereby enabling study of weak lensing, transient variables, near-earth asteroids, Kuiper Belt Objects; and bringing to maturity a new style of research: i.e., archival research based on an incredibly rich and ever-evolving imaging database.

Founding membership with the California Institute of Technology (CIT), the University of California, and the Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy (ACURA) in a consortium to design a 30-m class Giant Segmented Mirror Telescope (GSMT): the highest priority for ground-based astronomy identified in the decadal survey. The combination of diffraction-limited images and light-gathering power provided by this partnerships’s Thirty-Meter Telescope (TMT) project will enable quantitative study of the first-forming stars and galaxies, the constituent populations in galaxies well beyond the Local Group, the early formation of planetary systems, and the imaging and analysis of planets surrounding nearby stars. As a member of the TMT partnership, NOAO is assured of a voice “at the table” to express community aspirations during the crucial design and development phase, when key performance and cost trades are made.

A significant presence in planning and shaping the National Virtual Observatory (NVO): first, through the key role played by NVO Project Scientist (and NOAO astronomer), David De Young, and second, through the defining role of the NOAO Data Products Program in developing the pipelines, archives, and archive access and analysis tools needed to ingest and use data obtained with NOAO telescopes, with other O/IR facilities, and ultimately, with LSST and GSMT

A formative role in the evolution of the “system” concept of U.S. public and private telescopes via sponsorship and coordination of the community-based System Committee, and ongoing productive interactions, workshops, and discussion with the private observatories and broad-based community groups. NOAO’s commitment to the system approach has led to successful implementation of the Telescope System Instrumentation Program (TSIP) which provides public access to private facilities in exchange for federal funding of new instrumentation or capabilities at the private observatories. This “win-win” program expands the capabilities available both to scientists at the private observatories and their partners, and to the broader community.

Achieving these goals—each one a specific priority in the 2001 decadal survey—required a dramatic re-direction of NOAO resources. Figure 1 shows this evolution in resource allocation—from operating and instrumenting our 4-m and smaller legacy telescopes to major investment in LSST and GSMT. In FY 2005, NOAO is approaching its share of the goal set out for the NSF Senior Review, re-directing more than 25% of our resources to next generation facilities.

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In the following pages, we describe in detail the scientific challenges of the next decade, the role of O/IR astronomy in contributing to these challenges, and NOAO’s central role in guiding the evolution of the U.S. system of ground-based telescopes and in providing access to the next generation of facilities. This document, together with the final report of the O/IR Long Range Planning Committee (http://www.noao.edu/dir/lrplan/strategies-final.pdf), lays out a clear road map for the ongoing evolution of NOAO—from the design and development phases of LSST and GSMT through the operations phase of these powerful new facilities. Though the changes that NOAO will undergo in this process—changes within NOAO as well as changes in the character of our interactions with our user community—will be dramatic and occasionally challenging, the end result will be community access to world-leading new facilities, to the suite of smaller-scale facilities crucial for surveys and other path-finding observations, and to the rich databases emerging from this complex web of next generation and legacy telescopes.

FIGURE 1 NOAO is approaching the goal of investing 25% of program plan funds in decadal survey initiatives—even without including TSIP. The Senior Review’s announced purpose is to re-direct $30M out of $120M in AST facilities funding to these projects. The transition plan presented in Section 5 of this document is intended to realize NOAO’s share of that goal.

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1 SCIENCE OPPORTUNITIES

1.1 The New O/IR Astronomy

We live in a time of breathtakingly rapid advances in astronomy. The rapid pace of discovery is exemplified by the simple fact that two of the most compelling areas of research in astronomy today—extrasolar planets and “dark” energy—are subjects that did not exist 10 years ago (Mayor & Queloz 1995; Riess et al. 1998). Whereas the discovery of extrasolar planets was anticipated, hoped for, and long sought, the discovery of dark energy took us by surprise. Both have led to significant paradigm shifts, upending the certainty of fundamental physics in one case and, in the other, demonstrating the existence of planetary systems very different from our own. These subjects are of intense interest today, capturing the imagination of the general public and the astronomical community alike. This level of interest arises in part from what these subjects might reveal about us and the Universe we live in: Are we alone? And what is the fate of the Universe? These are profound questions that are likely to occupy our thoughts for years to come.

In contrast to the rapid pace of discovery experienced in these fields of astronomy, some of the major astronomical questions of the previous decades remain tantalizingly unanswered. For example, the nature of dark energy is a new mystery, certainly, but what of the more familiar unknown, the nature of dark matter? Over the last few decades, it has become clear that the familiar baryons (the neutrons and protons that comprise the stars, the ISM, the Earth, and us) account for only a small fraction of the total mass of the Universe. Most of the mass is in some new, unknown form of dark matter that neither emits nor absorbs light. While the discovery of dark energy informs us that the dynamical influence of dark matter in fact represents a comparatively small share of the entire mass and energy budget of the Universe, we currently know little about the nature of either dark energy or dark matter, the components that make up most of the Universe. Deciphering the nature of these new forms of matter and energy is one of the great challenges of cosmology today.

Similarly, the discovery of extrasolar planets has expanded our “origins” horizon to include the real possibility of solar systems like our own and life elsewhere in the Universe. But what of the more familiar questions regarding the origins of galaxies and stars? Stars form in galaxies. They light up the Universe and are the chemical cauldrons that produce the heavy elements from which we are made. We have reasonably good guesses at the evolutionary sequence by which stars form, but we have yet to devise a predictive theory for the origin of stellar masses, the critical property that governs their evolutionary history, light output, and yield of heavy metals. While it appears straightforward to pose this (perhaps the most fundamental) question about star formation, the topic of galaxy formation appears to be more complex. We now know that there are multiple, possibly interconnected threads to the story of galaxy formation—how stars form, how mass is assembled, how supermassive black holes form—but understanding how these elements fit together into a coherent story, and how the evolutionary history of our own Galaxy fits into this story, has proven to be a challenge.

What do these examples tell us about the nature of astronomical discovery and opportunity today? And can they help us understand how to use our available resources to facilitate continued discoveries and to answer the questions that they raise? The example of extrasolar planets illustrates how some discoveries can be shepherded along by the development of specialized tools and techniques (e.g., high precision radial velocities). The examples of dark matter and dark energy remind us that important discoveries can arrive unexpectedly, so we need to encourage and support diverse lines of inquiry through the

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availability of diverse observing resources and opportunities. While both dark energy and extrasolar planets illustrate how important discoveries can be made without the largest telescopes (both discoveries were made on 3–4-m class telescopes), they also illustrate the need for the larger aperture telescopes that have been critical in following up these discoveries.

These examples all point to the need for a diverse U.S. “system” of astronomical resources, one that includes large and small telescopes equipped with specialized and “work horse” instruments. The examples of dark energy and extrasolar planets also provide illustrations of the broad range in the “sociology” of astronomy that is in place today. While extrasolar planets were discovered by small, independent teams (e.g., Mayor and Queloz 1995; Marcy and Butler 1999), dark energy was discovered by teams with relatively large numbers (~20) of astronomers. Thus, if recent history serves as a guide, we can preserve the capability for discovery by accommodating a diversity of research approaches.

There is good reason for optimism that significant progress will be made toward the solution of these problems, new and old, in the next few decades. A number of new facilities and capabilities on the horizon will complement the existing suite of capabilities accessible to the U.S. astronomical community. These new facilities and capabilities can be grouped into several major themes, illustrating the diagnostic power, scientific opportunity, and potential for discovery that these facilities represent.

The Availability of Larger Aperture Ground-Based Telescopes

If history is a guide, a reliable way of ensuring spectacular astronomical discoveries and increased understanding is by building larger telescopes. The high sensitivity of the next generation of ground-based telescopes (e.g., the Thirty Meter Telescope [TMT] and the 20-m diameter Giant Magellan Telescope [GMT]) will enable the detection and study of the faintest objects (e.g., the most distant, youngest galaxies). They will also open up a new horizon in the study of objects at high angular resolution, possibly enabling the detection via imaging of planets orbiting nearby stars.

The Development and Use of Specialized Tools and Techniques

Perhaps more so than in the past, there is strong interest in developing specialized instruments and telescopes. The strong community support for these capabilities is demonstrated by their high ranking in the 2000 decadal survey2, Astronomy and Astrophysics in the New Millennium (AANM), and in the Aspen process of selecting the next generation of instruments for the Gemini telescopes http://www.us-gemini.noao.edu/files/docman/science/ aspen report.pdf . Although many of these capabilities are motivated by the need to solve particular focused problems, these capabilities also open up new domains of parameter space and are likely to lead to new discoveries.

Highly multi-plexed spectroscopy at optical wavelengths. A new generation of spectrographs will obtain spectra of the large galaxy samples that are needed to probe the nature of dark energy (e.g., Gemini’s wide-field multi-object spectrograph, WFMOS. But the capability will also be tremendously powerful in providing the large samples needed to

2 Christopher F. McKee, Joseph H. Taylor, Jr. et al. 2001. “Report of the Panel on Optical and Infrared Astronomy from the Ground, in Astronomy and Astrophysics in the New Millennium: Panel Reports (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press), 67-68.

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address problems characterized by intrinsic physical complexity (e.g., galaxy formation, structure in the Milky Way halo).

High contrast imaging using coronagraphs. Sophisticated coronagraphic instruments on Gemini and larger telescopes will probe the vicinity of bright stars (e.g., to search for planetary companions and circumstellar disk structure) and other extragalactic sources (e.g., AGN), a previously inaccessible region of the sky.

High resolution infrared spectroscopy. The availability of large-aperture platforms also opens up the possibility of exploring heretofore inaccessible wavelength regions, e.g., the mid-infrared at high spectral resolution, where the high thermal background has traditionally been a daunting challenge from the ground. At spectral resolutions of ~100,000, the sensitivity of a ground-based 30-m telescope rivals that of a 6-m telescope in space. Observations made in this wavelength region may provide fundamental constraints on our understanding of the dominant pathways for planet formation. High resolution near infrared spectroscopy has similar potential in astrochemistry.

Exploration of the time domain. Facilities capable of wide-field, high-sensitivity imaging (e.g., PanStarrs, LSST) will enable the exploration of the time domain. They are well-suited to characterizing populations of hazardous asteroids and probing the dynamical structure in the Kuiper Belt, but they may also identify important new classes of variable objects. The same facility can place fundamental constraints on our understanding of the nature of dark matter and dark energy through studies of gravitational lensing, both weak and strong.

Large Data Sets: Archives and Data Mining

A common characteristic of many of these new capabilities is that they will generate huge data sets. Thus, there is the opportunity for the “recycle and re-use” of these data through archives and data mining tools. The community’s interest and ability to make use of these resources build on the experience from projects such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS).

The wide range in the character and scope of the resources described above make them

well suited to advancing many fields of research and to enabling the diversity of research approaches that will be needed to solve major problems, as well as to ensure future discoveries. In addition, many of these resources have a strong synergy with space-based facilities and will contribute substantially to the science return from these missions. In the following sections, we attempt to illustrate how these developments combine to address specific astronomical problems. While these are some of the most active fields of astronomical research today, it is in fact a small subset of the broad range of problems that are currently being pursued and that will be pursued in the next few decades. It is important to recall that it is very possibly from this broader context that the most significant advances will be made.

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1.2 Dark Energy

One of the most startling scientific discoveries of the last decade is the realization that the Universe is filled with a new, unfamiliar form of energy—a “dark” energy that is causing the rate of expansion of the Universe to increase, rather than decrease, with time. This dark component dominates the total energy density of the Universe, comprising 73%; the remainder is largely an unknown form of matter (dark matter, making up 23%), with baryons, the only familiar form of matter or energy of the three, constituting a mere 4% of the total.

The discovery of dark energy has raised profound questions about the nature of matter, space, time, and energy, as well as the fate of the Universe. It challenges our fundamental physical understanding of the Universe, requiring either a modified theory of gravity or the existence of a new form of energy (or matter) with negative pressure. Understanding the nature of dark energy and how it evolves with time is critical to our fundamental theories of physics and to our understanding of the fate of the Universe, e.g., whether the expansion of the Universe will continue accelerating, slow down, or possibly reverse itself in a cosmic re-collapse.

The existence of dark energy was first recognized through studies of distant supernovae. The simplest parameterization of dark energy is represented by Einstein’s cosmological constant, which elegantly results in a universal expansion in which the acceleration dominates at late times (z<1). More general (but still naive) parameterizations define an equation of state w=P/ρ, where ρ is the density of matter and radiation and P is the pressure (w=−1 is the simple

FIGURE 1.1 Surveys with 4-meter telescopes are a significant and efficient precursor to, and support of, dark energy investigations of the next decade.

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case of the cosmological constant). The first steps are to constrain not only w, but also its redshift derivative w', in the expectation that such constraints would allow us to discriminate between competing physical theories.

In the pursuit of these constraints, the need to recognize and limit the impact of possible systematic effects drives a multifaceted approach. Since different systematic effects dominate different observational methods, the most robust approach will be to use multiple, independent techniques to probe dark energy over a range of redshifts and to cross-check the techniques against one another. Cross-checks may prove critical in identifying unknown sources of systematic error. The techniques currently in use generically require the use of either standard candles (e.g., supernovae) or standard rulers (e.g., baryon acoustic oscillations) measured as a function of redshift. As a consequence of this multifaceted approach, a wide variety of observations are needed, from the basic calibration of tools and techniques (e.g. standard candles, standard rulers, systematic effects governing Type Ia supernovae), to precursor imaging surveys (for selecting galaxy redshift targets), to follow up highly multiplexed, wide-field spectroscopy (for dark energy redshift surveys, galaxy formation questions) or light curve measurements.

Indeed, ground-based optical and near-IR observations will be the cornerstone of these investigations. Like dark matter before it, the existence of dark energy was discovered through ground-based observations made in part with NOAO telescopes (Rubin 1979; Riess et al. 1998, Perlmutter et al. 1999). These observations contributed both the wide-field imaging surveys from which the Type Ia supernovae are identified and the fundamental calibration of Type Ia supernovae as standard candles (Hamuy et al. 2000). The NOAO 4-m telescopes have played a significant role in both efforts and are expected to continue to be important in future efforts to understand the nature of dark energy (Figure 1.1).

Supernovae

As the technique by which dark energy was discovered, there is naturally considerable interest in using supernovae to probe the nature of dark energy. Supernovae can be used as standard candles to probe the expansion history of the Universe back to z~1.5. Several refinements can be made to enable their future use as a precision probe. The first major refinement is to collect larger samples of supernovae. While current sample sizes are ~500 to z~1, future capabilities such as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will discover and measure multi-color light curves for ~250,000 type Ia supernovae per year over the redshift range 0.1−0.7; the space-based Joint Dark Energy Mission will focus on studying supernovae at higher redshifts. Large samples are critical, both to reduce statistical error as well as to allow the exploration of possible systematic effects, for example, by dividing supernovae into subsamples that depend on supernova properties (e.g., light curve shape), host galaxy properties (e.g., morphological type, metallicity, star formation rate), or other quantities (e.g., direction on the sky). The current systematic errors are probably large and not well understood.

The second major refinement is to carry out detailed spectroscopic studies of local supernovae (v < 10,000 km/s) in order to better understand the origin of the systematic effects. Examples include studying how the light curve shape of supernovae is correlated with the spectral features in supernova spectra, host galaxy metallicities and star formation histories, i.e., surrogate properties that may reveal a dependence on progenitor masses and metallicities. These studies should help us better understand the nature of supernovae as a cosmic probe. Many of these studies can be carried out on modest aperture telescopes (2–4-m), although high signal-to-noise-ratio spectroscopy at late times requires much larger apertures.

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Baryon Acoustic Oscillations

Giant galaxy redshift surveys can provide an independent, high precision probe of dark energy. This approach makes use of the fact that acoustic oscillations in the primeval Universe imprint a preferred scale on both the cosmic microwave background radiation and the late-time large scale clustering of galaxies. This scale can be used as a precision “standard ruler” to provide an independent and robust measure of the expansion rate of the Universe at different epochs (Blake & Glazebrook 2003, Hu & Haiman 2003, Seo & Eisenstein 2003).

Prior to recombination, the coupled components of gas and light both responded to propagating sound waves. The effects of these acoustic oscillations are recorded in the spatial structure of both components, a record that persists into the post-recombination era. The signature of these oscillations are accessible today as the well-known Doppler peaks in the anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (e.g., as measured by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe [WMAP]: Bennett et al. 2003) and in the late-time clustering of galaxies. The latter signature manifests itself as a weak sinusoidal modulation in the amplitude of fluctuations as a function of scale (e.g., 2dF: Cole et al. 2005; SDSS: Eisenstein et al. 2005 at low redshift). The calibration of the galaxy clustering signature using the CMB angular scale makes this “baryon acoustic oscillation method” a powerful, absolute standard ruler.

The discriminatory power of this technique lies in probing clustering over wide ranges in redshift (e.g., z~0.5–3). The instrumentation needs for this project are well matched to the kind of highly multiplexed, wide-field optical spectrograph envisioned by NOAO astronomers in 1999. NOAO has been driving this intellectual effort and participated in the WFMOS feasibility study for Gemini as part of the Aspen process. These surveys will build on our current, extensive capability for wide-field, multi-color imaging available on existing ground-based ~4-m class telescopes.

The Growth of Structure

The dark force retards the growth of structure and extends the age of the Universe, allowing structure to form well before z = 1. Planned measurements of the growth of clustering with redshift include the following:

Clusters of galaxies are detected in a redshift-independent way through their Sunyaev-Zeldovich perturbation in the background CMB signal. Using the Dark Energy Camera, the Dark Energy Survey (DES) with the Blanco 4-m telescope at CTIO will measure photometric redshifts for clusters discovered by the South Pole telescope.

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will use weak lensing to determine the growth of structure, following the pioneering efforts of the Deep Lens Survey on the NOAO 4-meter telescopes (Wittman et al 2003).

1.3 Galaxy Formation and Evolution

Within galaxies, gas is transformed into stars, which in turn generate the heavy elements from which we are made. Consequently, galaxies generate most of the light in the Universe and can be detected out to its farthest reaches. Their ubiquity makes them valuable tracers of the geometry of the Universe and of the evolution of large-scale structure, a goal that requires an

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understanding of the structure and evolution of galaxies themselves. Studies of the evolution of galaxies, in turn, provides the context needed to understand the history of our own Galaxy, the Milky Way.

NOAO facilities have played a role in galaxy formation studies from the outset. Observations with the 4-m telescopes revealed the first direct evidence for galaxy evolution via the number counts for “faint blue galaxies” and the color evolution of galaxies in rich clusters. Today, galaxies can be identified and studied out to z ~ 6.5, over 90% of the history of the Universe. The current challenge is to connect galaxy populations at different redshifts in an evolutionary sequence, and to map how the evolving properties of galaxies reflect the underlying physical processes that govern their growth.

Whereas galaxy evolution was once thought to be synonymous with the evolution of their stellar populations, today galaxy evolution is recognized to be a more a far more complex and dynamic process, involving the assembly of galaxy mass through merging, the formation of stars, the diversification of morphological structure, the growth and feeding of central, super-massive black holes, and the possible interplay between these processes. The inherent complexity of this evolution requires the use of diverse techniques to reconstruct that history. These include multi-wavelength surveys of large samples of galaxies to chart the evolution in

FIGURE 1.2 A science plan for broad community participation in the study of galaxy formation

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galaxy properties; the use of clustering and gravitational lensing to connect the light from galaxies to their underlying dark matter halos; tomographic study of the IGM in order to understand the connection between galaxies and the gas from which they formed; the search for most distant objects, ultimately at the epoch when the first luminous objects formed; and the study of resolved stellar populations in the Milky Way and nearby galaxies, which reveals a complementary record of the star formation, chemical enrichment, and merging history of individual galaxies. With this suite of observations, we are poised to provide an evolutionary sequence of the formation of galaxies, from the first galaxies at z~10, to understanding the structure in the local Universe.

Galaxy Properties over Cosmic Time

The evolving distribution functions of galaxy properties (masses, ages, star formation rates, chemical abundances, morphologies, merger rates, nuclear activity, and clustering properties) provide a means of connecting galaxy populations at different redshifts and to trace their evolutionary history. These studies are intrinsically multi-wavelength given the need to study properties as diverse as stellar content (UV through near-IR), star formation (UV, far-IR, radio), chemical abundance (nebular line spectroscopy), gas and dust content (radio, millimeter and sub-mm, far-IR) black hole accretion (e.g., X-rays), and related AGN activity (e.g., UV/optical, radio, mid- and far-IR).

Until recently, the galaxy samples were available for such studies were small (hundreds of objects) and limited primarily to low redshifts (z<1). This restricted analyses to only a small range of galaxy properties, such as luminosity functions: we could see that the luminosity function evolved, but did not have enough information about other physical characteristics of galaxies to say why it evolved. Progress has been made through an ever-increasing synergy between ground- and space-based observations: the forefront galaxy evolution surveys are now joint ground+space explorations such as GOODS, COSMOS, and the NDWFS Bootes field.

The NOAO system of observing resources will play a critical role in extending these investigations to a new generation of much larger, multi-wavelength surveys (Figure 1.2). For example, very deep infrared imaging surveys are invaluable for measuring the evolution of galaxies beyond z > 1, but currently lag far behind the state of the art at optical wavelengths, a situation that will be resolved by NEWFIRM on the NOAO 4-m telescopes. NEWFIRM surveys will overcome the “UV-bias” that currently affects all wide-field surveys of galaxies at z > 1, measuring rest-frame optical light that traces evolved stellar populations, and enabling reliable photometric redshifts. At the same time, the MOSAIC cameras and their future, wider-field successors (ODI, DEC) will map out huge galaxy samples to target with the next generation of spectroscopic surveys. Photometric redshifts for millions of galaxies will set the stage for dark energy measurements (e.g., from Sunyaev-Zeldovich measurements of huge galaxy cluster samples), while also enabling precision statistical studies of galaxy evolution and its relation to the growth of large-scale structure.

The results of new spectroscopy surveys of galaxies near and far, combining (e.g.) data from MMT/Hectospec, Gemini/GMOS, and WFMOS, will elucidate the evolution of star formation, AGN accretion, and large scale structure over 90% of the cosmic timeline. Among these, WFMOS will be critical. By virtue of its high sensitivity (on an 8-m telescope) coupled with its tremendous multiplexing capability (simultaneous spectroscopy of ~5000 objects), it will be uniquely capable of addressing head-on the complexity of galaxy formation by studying the properties of millions of galaxies spread out over redshift.

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First Luminous Objects in the Universe

The most distant known galaxies and quasars (z~6.5) are found at the boundary of an important era in cosmic history. Quasar spectroscopy has demonstrated the onset of a Gunn-Peterson trough at z > 6, marking the end of the transition from a neutral IGM to an ionized one, while first-year results from WMAP point to z~17 as the start of this epoch of reionization. We therefore believe that the first stars, galaxies, and AGN lit up in significant numbers during the 700 million years that passed between those redshifts. Already at z~6 we find some galaxies whose stellar masses approach or even exceed those of the present-day Milky Way, as well as very luminous QSOs which must be powered by 109 Mo black holes. The early growth of these objects must have been extremely rapid, but the physics of this build-up, and in particular the processes by which the first stars formed out of primordial, metal-free gas, remain the subject of active theoretical speculation, and the next frontier for observation.

While this era of “first light” is a prime target for study with JWST, path-finding work will be carried out with current facilities, and the necessary complementary spectroscopy will be carried out with GSMT. At z > 6.5, the hunt for galaxies shifts into the near-infrared. Deep, infrared narrow-band imaging will extend Lyman alpha surveys into the reinoization era, both with NEWFIRM (covering large solid angles on the 4-m telescopes to find the most luminous, rare objects) and from Gemini (pushing to more common, lower-luminosity galaxies). Color-selected surveys, from the deepest ground-based infrared imaging or from WFC3 on HST if it is installed, may also identify candidates, and intensive efforts with near-infrared spectrographs on 8-10m telescopes (GNIRS, FLAMINGOS-2) will be required to confirm their redshifts and establish their spectral properties. The clustering of this young population, and its relation to galaxy “maturity” (e.g., as measured by stellar mass and age evaluated through deep Spitzer IRAC imaging) can offer a guide to how inhomogeneous early galaxy formation and the associated IGM reionization may have been. Ultimately, quantifying star formation, ISM kinematics, ionization and chemical abundances, and AGN activity at z > 7 will require near-infrared spectroscopy with GSMT. JWST will offer low-resolution spectroscopy that will measure redshifts for galaxies in the reionization era, but only GSMT with diffraction-limited infrared image quality and a spectral resolution R > 10000 can achieve the sensitivity and velocity resolution to diagnose the physical conditions in the ~108 Mo halos capable of the earliest, sustained star formation and growth as the seeds of present-day galaxies.

IGM Tomography

Most of the baryons in the Universe do not reside within galaxies themselves, but rather in the intergalactic medium. The IGM fuels star formation in young galaxies at high redshift. It also responds to the effects of “feedback” from that star formation and from AGN, which emit ionizing radiation, mechanical energy from winds, and expel metals which “pollute” the intergalactic gas. The interaction between galaxies and the IGM is likely to have been a dynamic, cyclical process during the galaxy formation epoch, and it is impossible to properly understand one without the other. Our knowledge of the IGM comes mainly from absorption line spectroscopy of small samples of bright background sources, traditionally QSOs. This has told us about the line-of-sight distribution of neutral gas at high redshift, and about the distribution of intergalactic metals as a function of HI column density. Recent surveys have begun to link the distribution of IGM clouds to that of galaxies themselves at z = 2 to 3 (Adelberger et al. 2003), revealing interrelationships between these two components of the Universe.

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A richer understanding of the galaxy-IGM connection will come from dense sampling of the IGM over large volumes. Such surveys will cover larger areas and a high density of spectroscopic sightlines. Wide-field imagers on 4-m telescopes can now carry out multicolor surveys covering many square degrees and are capable of identifying tens of thousands of galaxies at the redshifts of interest. WFMOS on Gemini will then enable wholesale spectroscopy of these galaxies to measure precise redshifts, as well as intermediate resolution (R~5000) spectroscopy for hundreds of QSOs bright enough to serve as absorption line probes over the same fields. This will lead to a 10- to 100-fold improvement in statistics for the IGM-galaxy connection, and also provide closer connection to the overall distribution of large-scale structure at these redshifts, which can be reliably traced over a contiguous area with transverse scales of several hundred co-moving Mpc. A still greater leap will come with GSMT, which will enable R~5000 spectroscopy of individual Lyman break galaxies down to R=24, turning them into background light sources for absorption line studies. This increases the potential sightline density by more than 2 orders of magnitude, to more than 1 arcmin-2, making it possible to sample the IGM on physical scales < 500 kpc, the scales over which we expect galaxies may exert influence on their surroundings through winds and ionizing radiation. This, together with the vast increase in galaxy-absorption cloud pairs that would come from a large survey with such dense angular sampling, will enable true, three-dimensional “tomography” of the IGM over the redshift range where we believe galaxies were most rapidly growing, turning the gaseous IGM/ISM into stars.

Formation of the Galaxy Using Chemical Tagging

Detailed imaging and spectroscopy of individual stars in our Galaxy and its local group neighbors provide independent constraints on the history of their formation. Both modeling of hierarchical galaxy assembly and the direct observation of recent accretion events in the Galaxy and nearby resolved systems point to models, pioneered by Searle and Zinn, of the formation of our Galaxy by many discrete events (Freeman and Bland-Hawthorn 2003). The record of each event is contained in the age, kinematics, and detailed chemistry of its stars. The aggregate stellar populations of the disk and halo may be separable into thousands of individual compo-nents distinguishable by detailed observable relationships. A “genetic” analysis of the halo and thick disk of the Milky Way has begun in earnest, with such known structures as the Sagittarius stream and Kapteyn’s star group. Selected path-finding studies can be carried out, for example, with 4-m imaging surveys (using NEWFIRM or MOSAIC) combined with high-resolution spectroscopy with HIRES, bHROS, SIFS, and the Mayall Echelle. The results of these studies will inform more comprehensive studies, to be made with WFMOS, of the assembly and star formation histories of the Milky Way and nearby galaxies.

Such studies will also identify rare stellar populations such as Population III stars. The archetypal stellar population of this kind is the true first generation of stars to form after the Big Bang. If these are predominantly massive stars, we can expect their progeny to show the pure chemistry of type II supernova nucleosynthesis. A handful of such stars is currently known with remarkable ratios of alpha-element abundances to iron and apparently stochastic variations in the r-process elements. A complete survey to find this population of stars is the one of the most important products of the Galactic chemical tagging program.

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1.4 Origin of Planetary Systems

More than 100 planets are now known beyond the solar system. One of the most eye-opening aspects of the extrasolar planets is the tremendous, unanticipated variety in their properties, such as their masses, orbital radii, and eccentricities. On the one hand, the remarkable diversity is a bold challenge to theories of planet formation; on the other, the diversity itself may provide important clues to understanding how planets form. Either way, the diversity is a clear statement that planet formation can lead to a variety of outcomes, including planetary systems very different from our own.

The known diversity among the extrasolar planets has given rise to multiple theories to explain their origin. Some of these (e.g., core accretion) strongly favor the creation of solar systems like our own, whereas others (e.g., gravitational instabilities) are likely to lead to systems with very different planetary architectures. Thus, distinguishing between these scenarios has a strong connection to an issue of anthropic interest: the commonality (or rarity) of solar systems like our own.

A multi-faceted observational approach to this question appears to be critical. The likelihood that diverse physical processes lead to diverse planetary architectures drives the search for planets over a wide range of mass and orbital radius, naturally requiring the use of multiple techniques. In addition, the possibility that the interplay between the physical processes conspires to produce multiple paths to the same evolutionary outcome drives us to search beyond

FIGURE 1.3 The origin of planetary systems is expected to engage a large community and major facilities in the coming decade.

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planetary architectures for clues to their origins, clues that may be found in planetary metallicities and planet formation environments. Closer to home, the dynamical structure in our own Kuiper Belt can be probed for clues to the dynamical history of planets in our solar system. In order to support this broad range of approaches, a wide range of observational capabilities is called for (Figure 1.3).

Characterizing the Diversity of Planetary Systems

One of the most important avenues of investigation is characterizing the frequency distribution of planets as a function of planet mass, orbital separation, eccentricity, and other system properties. These statistical properties provide fundamental constraints on planet formation scenarios. For example, distant, massive, eccentric planets are a likely outcome of gravitational instability scenarios. In contrast, the presence of low mass (~10 MEarth), icy (Neptune-like) giant planets is an indication that the core accretion process has been at work.

Results to date have primarily come from precision radial velocity studies and the measurement of planetary transits. The sizes and masses of planets detected through planetary transit studies have shown that the transiting planets are gaseous and have begun to characterize the properties of their atmospheres. Studies using the Doppler technique have discovered ~150 giant planets around ~130 normal stars, providing a nearly complete census of giant planets within 2 AU of FGK stars within 30 pc. Over the next decade, such studies will provide a more complete census of the giant planet population at Jupiter-like distances.

In the next decade, the availability of new instruments will allow us to probe a wider range of plausible planetary architectures. Powerful coronagraphs on the Gemini South telescope will enable direct imaging studies designed to detect and characterize giant planets. In the near term, the Near Infrared Coronagraphic Imager (NICI) will enable searches for giant planets orbiting the nearest sun-like stars and low luminosity brown dwarfs. In subsequent years, it will actually be possible to search for giant planets at outer solar system distances (5–50 AU) using the Extreme Adaptive Optics Coronagraph (ExAOC) to study nearby young stars (<~50 pc). On a longer time scale, with an ExAO system on the TMT, we will be able to search for and study giant planets at even smaller angular separations, including self-luminous giant planets in the process of formation, i.e., in the nearest star forming regions 150 pc away. These observations will play an important role in understanding how planets form and whether planet formation ultimately results in planetary architectures that are similar to or different from that of our own solar system.

Characterizing Planetary Atmospheres

Detecting the light from a planet would open up the possibility of placing independent constraints on planet properties and formation mechanisms through measurements of the temperature, gravity, and chemical composition of the atmosphere. Temperatures and gravities can be used to infer the age and mass of the planet. The composition of the planet (rocky or gaseous) can provide clues to its origin: a planetary metallicity that is the same as the metallicity of its central star would be consistent with gravitational instability, whereas the core accretion model would predict a more metal-rich planet. In the near term, low resolution spectroscopy with Gemini/ExAOC should be able to measure effective temperatures and gravities. The higher resolution spectroscopy that may be needed to infer chemical composition is within reach of the TMT in both the spatially resolved (ExAO) and unresolved (NIRES, MIRES) regimes.

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Probing Planet Formation Environments

Beyond the actual detection and characterization of the planets themselves, a wide array of observations can be used to understand how planets form and the likelihood of solar systems like our own. Since planet formation occurs in the context of star formation, understanding fundamental issues for star formation (e.g., how and why disks accrete, how disks are truncated, how grains grow and settle) also has significant implications for our understanding of planet formation. Among these issues, understanding the evolution of the gaseous component of planet-forming disks is a challenging frontier with significant potential rewards.

In the giant planet region of the disk (few-10 AU), the lifetime of the gaseous component constrains the time scale over which giant planet formation occurs, and therefore the dominant pathway(s) for giant planet formation. A short gas dissipation time scale (> 1 Myr) favors gravitational instabilities which can form planets quickly (<< 1 Myr), whereas a longer gas dissipation time scale (> 1 Myr) accommodates the core accretion picture in which planet formation occurs on a more leisurely time scale (1–10 Myr). The gas dissipation time scale in the terrestrial planet region of the disk (within a few AU) is also of interest. This is because residual gas content at the epoch when protoplanets assemble to form terrestrial planets is believed to play a critical role in determining the outcome of terrestrial planet formation, i.e., the masses and eccentricities of planets, and their consequent habitability. In particular, only a narrow range in residual gas column density (around 1 g/cm2) is likely to lead to planets with the Earth-like masses and low eccentricities that we associate with habitability on Earth.

Many promising diagnostics of gaseous disks are found in the near- and mid-infrared and are well-suited to study with ground-based telescopes (e.g., Keck, Gemini, TMT). Current studies (e.g., with NIRSPEC/Keck, TEXES/IRTF) are focused on characterizing the promising diagnostics. The high sensitivity and large statistical samples that are required to carry out definitive studies make this a compelling problem for the TMT.

Dynamical History of Our Solar System

Complementary to an understanding of the dominant pathways for planet formation elsewhere in the Galaxy is an understanding of the formation and evolutionary history of our own planetary system. Unique constraints are provided by the structure in the Kuiper Belt, which records the dynamical history of the solar system. For example, families of Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) that are trapped in mean motion resonances with Neptune can be explained as a consequence of the outward migration of the outer giant planets and the inward migration of Jupiter, a dynamical event that may be tied to the epoch of Late Heavy Bombardment that sculpted the surfaces of bodies in the terrestrial planet region (Strom et al. 2005; Morbidelli et al. 2005). The Neptunian Trojans discovered by the Deep Ecliptic Survey on the NOAO 4-m telescopes rule out violent orbital histories for Neptune. Similarly, the orbital parameters of Sedna (Brown et al. 2004) suggest that the solar system was born in a high density star-forming region more similar to Orion than Taurus. Thus, these clues help us to understand the conditions under which the solar system formed and under which life may have emerged on Earth.

Obtaining further clues of this kind relies on the ability to carry out sensitive, wide-field surveys. By studying large samples of KBOs covering the entire ecliptic, one can hope to discover rare populations (e.g., Sedna) that are markers of significant dynamical events (e.g., multiple close stellar passages). Along these lines, LSST is expected to discover and characterize (orbital parameters, colors, shapes, tensile strength) tens to hundreds of thousands of KBOs.

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1.5 Multi-wavelength Science and Support of Space Astronomy

The previous sections intimate some of the evolution taking place in the practice of astronomy. Astronomy today is more of a multi-wavelength endeavor, linking the ground with space: problems such as the formation of galaxies, stars, and planets all rely on data sets spanning the range from X-rays to radio wavelengths. With many problems requiring data taken over a wide range of wavelengths, astronomers often rely on complementing ground-based observations with space-based observations that probe spectral regions inaccessible from the ground.

The synergy between ground and space can take on other forms. The high angular resolution and/or high photometric accuracy achievable in space often complements the deeper spectroscopy that is possible with larger ground-based telescopes. For example, space-based observations are often used to probe the morphology and assembly of galaxies, while ground-based spectroscopy is used to obtain redshifts as well as complementary information on star formation rates and chemical enrichment. Supernovae are selected photometrically from space-based observations and are followed spectroscopically from the ground. Similarly, the ease with which large-area imaging studies can be carried out from the ground makes it possible to find rare populations that can be studied in greater detail from space. As one example, gravitational lens candidates obtained from ground-based data can be followed up using high angular resolution observations from space to constrain the underlying gravitational potential.

NOAO has long recognized the strong scientific synergy between ground- and space-based observing capabilities and has, accordingly, allocated observing resources in support of such programs. This has been achieved both through the standard time allocation process and by special initiatives to foster joint space- and ground-based observing programs. Over the last five years, NOAO has allocated at least 1,125 nights to observing programs which support or complement space-based observations from HST, Chandra, Spitzer, Compton (CGRO), SWIFT, FUSE, XMM-Newton, ROSAT, and (in anticipation) SIM and GLAST. This tally is based on an undoubtedly incomplete survey of project titles and is almost certainly an underestimate of the true synergy between NOAO and space-based observatories.

NOAO programs have supported or followed up on space-based observations covering a broad range of astronomical subjects, currently including:

Optical and near-IR imaging for deep Spitzer, HST, and Chandra surveys of the distant Universe to trace the past history of star formation and galaxy assembly, accretion onto giant black holes, and the formation and evolution of large-scale structure as traced by rich, X-ray luminous galaxy clusters.

Follow up Gamma Ray Bursts (GRB), providing optical and near-infrared counterpart identification, photometric monitoring, and spectroscopy.

Imaging and spectroscopy of nearby galaxies studied with HST, Spitzer, and Chandra. These data have been used to understand star formation, stellar populations, the galaxy-black hole connection, extra-nuclear high-energy sources, supernovae, and the extragalactic distance scale.

Spectroscopic studies of nearby and distant active galactic nuclei jointly with X-ray and UV space telescopes, including simultaneous ground and space monitoring campaigns.

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Optical spectroscopy in coordination with space-based UV or X-ray observations of intervening or associated quasar absorption line systems.

Supporting mundane but vital work such as HST standard star calibration and assistance in preparing the way for future missions such as SIM and GLAST.

The expectation is that the demand for complementary ground- and space-based observing opportunities will continue to grow as ongoing missions carry out larger and more ambitious surveys, filling their archives with observations requiring follow-up, and as new space observatories are launched or progress through their planning stages. NOAO will play a vital role in enhancing the scientific value of these space observations through continued community access to the ground-based optical-infrared observing system.

Spitzer, in particular, has proven to be an enormously efficient mapping machine capable of covering large solid angles to remarkable mid- and far-infrared sensitivity limits. Spitzer programs span a huge range of scientific objectives and nearly all require or can strongly benefit from optical and near-infrared imaging and spectroscopy. Indeed, efficient new wide-field infrared and optical cameras like NEWFIRM, ODI or DECam are essential just to keep up with the data flow from Spitzer alone. The new generation of multi-wavelength, multi-observatory surveys like GOODS and COSMOS will continue to motivate extensive spectroscopy to measure galaxy redshifts, kinematics, chemical abundances, and AGN activity for many years after the space-based data are in hand and released to the astronomical community. The GRB industry will continue to grow and to be a driver for large-aperture telescope time. An extended HST lifetime, if it is serviced again, would continue to motivate ground-based observations, particularly if new HST instruments, such as WFC3 and COS, are installed.

In the future, new missions such as WISE, a medium-class explorer (MIDEX) sky survey at 3.6 to 24 microns, will provide a flood of new targets in nearly all research areas of astronomy from the solar system to distant galaxies, all of which will require ground-based imaging and spectroscopic follow-up. Herschel will continue where Spitzer leaves off, opening new wavelength windows at unprecedented sensitivity to study galaxies whose redshifts and optical/near-IR properties must be measured from the ground. Still farther ahead, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will be a tremendously powerful facility, whose sensitivity at 1–30 microns will demand the best optical supporting data that ground-based telescopes can provide. Unlike many other space telescopes, JWST will have a powerful spectroscopic capability with NIRSPEC, but only at near-infrared wavelengths and with comparatively low spectral resolution, fueling the need for optical and mid-IR spectroscopy from ground-based facilities. In turn, ground-based progress in the discovery and study of extra-solar planets will continue to shape the development and science programs of planet-hunting space missions such as Kepler and TPF-C.

NOAO’s goal for the coming decade is to support a seamless science investigation into the primary questions confronting the astronomical community today.

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2 THE O/IR SYSTEM 2005–2015

2.1 Idea of the System

Just as the way we now do scientific research demands a “system” approach, so, too, do the strategic planning activities for our facilities. Ground-based O/IR astronomy in the U.S. is characterized by a unique situation with regard to facilities. The majority of the major telescopes (approximately 80%) are owned and operated by non-federal organizations—either private or state universities or private research institutes. These facilities are available exclusively to the staff, faculty, or affiliated partners of the organizations that own them. The consequence is that the evolution of these facilities takes place through parallel, independent processes; the emphasis is on competition rather than collaboration. While diversity and a competitive approach are desirable elements, a better perspective is to allow some development of these forefront U.S. facilities to be aimed at providing the most effective complementary capabilities within the suite of facilities as a whole. This idea led the most recent decadal Astronomy and Astrophysics Survey Committee (AASC) to propose that all ground-based O/IR facilities be viewed by the community and by the funding agency (NSF) as a coherent “system.”

There are two fundamental advantages to this perspective. First, it is not necessary to duplicate every capability if some sharing is possible. Thus, resources can be used to create new capabilities rather than reproducing existing ones on multiple telescopes. Second, as discussed in Section 1, progress in astronomy has come to depend more and more on the synergistic relationships among different facilities: ground and space, large and small, optical, radio, and x-ray. If these can be explicitly planned for and developed, the resulting broad suite of capabilities is all the more effective.

Within the context of the ground-based O/IR system, the relationship between telescopes of different size deserves some discussion. Despite the fact that larger telescopes are generally newer than smaller telescopes, there are other important distinctions. Because the physical size of a given field of view gets larger with the telescope aperture (at a fixed focal ratio), wide-field instruments become more and more expensive, and less and less practical, as telescopes get larger. Thus, wide-field instruments are much more common on 3–5-m telescopes than they are on 8–10-m telescopes. Scientific investigations often initially seek to find samples through wide-field imaging or wide-field multi-object spectroscopy and then proceed to detailed study of subsets of the objects discovered through high-resolution spectroscopy or high resolution imaging. This sequence is most efficiently carried out using a combination of small and large telescopes.

2.2 NOAO Roles in the System

As noted in the AASC report, NOAO has special roles in the ground-based O/IR system. As the single observatory that can put community interests first, NOAO must strive to provide the important capabilities that are not accessible elsewhere in the system. These capabilities may be unique but scientifically important ones, or they may be “work horse” instruments for which the demand exceeds the supply.

NOAO is not only responsible for providing some of these capabilities, but also for ensuring or arranging community access to a sensible subset of the entire range of the system. This is done primarily through peer-review access to both NOAO telescopes and public-access time on other telescopes. It is worth noting, and it will be discussed below in greater detail, that

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archived data represent another channel for such access, and enabling the archiving and community use of all ground-based O/IR data is also within NOAO’s mandate.

As stated above, one of the principal motivations for using the system perspective to guide investment in capabilities is the conservation of resources that can be used to create uniquely powerful facilities whose size or expense requires a community-wide investment. As stated in the decadal survey, NOAO must provide the leadership (both scientific and technical) to initiate these activities and to involve and represent the community in them. A consequence of this responsibility is that NOAO has to manage its own evolution in a way that creates or maintains its capability to play appropriate roles in these most ambitious initiatives.

Lastly, the collection of facilities can be considered a system only if there are mechanisms for synthesizing strategic plans and road maps from community discussion and for using this input to drive decisions. NOAO holds periodic community-wide meetings and workshops with the explicit goal of collecting input on system issues. The reports from these meetings provide a general picture of community concerns and ideas; they also provide more direct guidance for the Telescope System Instrumentation Program (TSIP), administered by NOAO to enhance the capabilities of the system, provide public access to the private observatories, and increase everyone’s interest in seeing the system evolve and run smoothly.

Thus, management and evolution of the system is a very real part of the NOAO mission; ongoing development of the system will continue to be the context for a large fraction of the NOAO program.

2.3 Capabilities Needed in an Effective System

The system is not static. New technology is invented. New discoveries guide research interests in new directions. In order for the system to remain relevant, its capabilities must evolve along with community demand and interest. In order to maintain community access to a relevant suite of forefront capabilities, NOAO must monitor a number of metrics. These include community interest in capabilities that are being offered through various channels as well as desires expressed for new capabilities, new access, or more access. There are formal mechanisms for analyzing these metrics, e.g., oversubscription rates for each telescope are evaluated and published in the NOAO Newsletter every semester, but there are also informal mechanisms. Principal among these is the interaction of the NOAO scientific staff with others in the scientific community.

In addition to the capabilities, access itself is a requirement for the system to be effective. In some sense, access and its limitation represent the balance between collaboration and competition. To the degree that any person has access to a facility, that person will be willing to think about how to make that facility better or to imagine what capability could be developed for that facility. Access to data through an archive provides a lesser, but still significant, stake in a facility. Thus, the archiving of data from all observatories, together with development of the infrastructure to make it scientifically useful, will help the total suite of facilities function more like a system.

2.4 Current Status of the System

The easiest way to divide up the telescopes that are available to the community is by aperture. The strengths of telescopes of different sizes are simple to understand. The largest telescopes have the unique capabilities of the greatest light gathering power and potentially (through adaptive optics) the highest angular resolution. These are the telescopes that are used

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for observations that are photon-starved (spectroscopy, spectropolarimetry) or need this highest resolution. Wide-field instruments for the largest telescopes are very large and expensive, however, and so these telescopes usually have instrument complements (or even intrinsic designs) that only extend to moderate fields of view. Medium size telescopes have the advantage that wide-field instruments are manageable, and so these telescopes emphasize wide-field imaging and multi-object spectroscopy over fields of a degree or more. Smaller telescopes, below about 2.5 meters, have the advantage that they are relatively cheap to build, and so their focus is on problems where time or access, rather than photon-gathering ability, is paramount.

The true situation is, of course, much more complex than these general observations, and factors like access to different parts of the sky, ability to perform target of opportunity observations, stability of instrumentation, and scheduling constraints also play a role in the way all the capabilities fit together. Below are descriptions of the current major components of the ground-based O/IR system, with explanations of what they contribute.

Kitt Peak National Observatory

KPNO is an essential component of the national system, and merits continuing strategic federal investment to maximize scientific productivity for the community. As described above, its telescopes offer wide-field imaging and spectroscopic capability in the optical and near-IR that complement the narrower fields of large-aperture facilities in a highly cost-effective manner. The developed infrastructure has been attractive for “tenant” consortia to locate their own observing facilities on the site; as with the national telescopes, they provide a strong education and training component along with forefront research. The site remains an excellent continental choice, with median image quality ~two-thirds arcsecond, some three-quarters of the hours usable for observing (10-yr average), and the sky brightness comparable to that at Palomar in the mid-1970s when the latter was considered a premier dark site.

The transition plan proposed in Section 5 of this document is designed to maintain scientific vitality of the facility while transferring NSF base budget funding to decadal survey

FIGURE 2.1 Schematic denoting the current state of the O/IR observing system. Large aperture telescopes on left (with TSIP access to independent telescopes indicated); medium aperture center; small aperture on right. Telescopes currently with 80-100% public access are shown in color. Shaded color denotes public-private partnership.

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priorities. KPNO will manage the staged addition of operations partners for the Mayall 4-m and 2.1-m telescopes. The new partners will provide operations funding in exchange for guaranteed observing time for their astronomers in a fully integrated schedule. The current staffing level will be maintained, as it is the minimum for safe, reliable, and modestly versatile operation of the three telescopes. KPNO will serve as the operations contractor, with the partnership money flowing through AURA (or any successor). That approach maintains long-developed expertise and institutional memory, assuring continuing scientific productivity of the telescopes in which NSF has invested considerable resources. The NSF’s choice for implementing Senior Review recommendations will then determine the rate of addition and extent of partnership shares.

The following sections highlight the benefits in maintaining proposal-driven competitive access to a meaningful share of the time on these unique national telescopes.

The Mayall 4-m Telescope

This 30-year-old telescope has been modernized to approach contemporary expectations for image quality and performance. Over the last 10 years, the dome has been ventilated and a chilling and air extraction system for the primary mirror has been produced for thermal control. The pneumatic support system for the primary mirror has been placed under active control to remove the low-order bending modes. The actuators for the f/8 secondary mirror were upgraded to the precision necessary to actively remove the small misalignments leading to comatic distortion. The median image quality is now sub-arcsecond and time lost to telescope and instrument failures remains well below 5%.

The Mayall telescope supports a versatile suite of instruments. The CCD Mosaic imager subtends almost a 1-degree field of view at prime focus and is heavily in demand. The University of Florida near-IR imager and long-slit/multi-slit spectrograph (FLAMINGOS) covers a 14 arcminute FOV and was one of the first instruments to deploy a 2K × 2K NIR detector array. The MARS all-transmissive spectrograph contains a thick CCD from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory with extraordinary quantum efficiency in the far red; combined with nod-and-shuffle control, it gives the Mayall + MARS an effective area at 0.95 microns that rivals that of the largest aperture telescopes with conventional CCDs. The legacy RC and echelle spectrographs remain in steady demand, with a suite of gratings that cover the optical range with resolutions from 1,000 to 30,000.

Proposal teams have exploited Mosaic and FLAMINGOS to tackle key scientific programs identified in the current decadal survey. Imaging surveys have addressed the evolution of large-scale structure, the distribution and cut-off of Kuiper Belt objects, a mass map of the low-z Universe from weak lensing shear, anisotropies in the Hubble flow, the pre-main sequence mass distribution and energy flows in star formation regions, the nature of X-ray emitters in the Galactic plane, a census of high-z Lyman alpha emitters, and stellar populations in Local Group galaxies. Semester-by-semester PI programs allow explorations of such areas as the origin of planetary nebulae, the spectral types of young stars in embedded clusters, bulge velocity dispersions in AGN hosts, and the population of z=6 quasars from SDSS candidates. These important programs reflect the forefront science of the investigators from the institutions most frequently awarded time on the basis of their competitive proposals: Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), Smithsonian Institution, University of Arizona, and University of California.

Partnership investment will see the deployment of two new instruments in the immediate term. The University of Maryland has teamed with NOAO to produce NEWFIRM, the near-IR wide-field imager with a 4K × 4K array of InSb detectors covering a degree on the diagonal. Its placement at the f/8 RC focus allows effective use of narrow-band filters for programs such as

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mapping of Galactic star-forming nebulae, characterization of high-redshift galaxy populations, and searches for very high-redshift Lyman alpha emitters.

Goddard Space Flight Center and STScI have produced a near-IR multi-object spectrograph (IRMOS) for the KPNO telescopes, using a micro-mirror array as a cold, programmable slit mask. While proposers get the benefits of the capability through a public time-share, the JWST program will continue its experiment in producing interpolated data cubes from sparsely and randomly sampled multi-slit data.

Thanks to Mosaic and NEWFIRM, the Mayall telescope plays a unique role in the O/IR system context. It is the only U.S. 4-m in the Northern hemisphere providing those wide-field optical and near-IR imaging capabilities. Such imaging enables searches that go beyond the static multi-color reach of SDSS and the sharply-defined patterns and areal coverage of the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS): they can employ narrow-band filters, IR coverage, time domain with custom cadences, and greater depth in a chosen area at a chosen time.

Imaging and spectral reconnaissance with the 4-m telescope provide a level playing field for Gemini access and deployment of the most cost-effective and best-matched capability for problems with a wide-field component and range of object brightnesses. Wide-field imaging and brighter object spectroscopy will remain an essential complement to programs with NASA missions such as Chandra, Spitzer, and Swift.

The Mayall telescope serves as a valuable platform for instrument development in universities and research labs, resulting in user access to such instruments as FLAMINGOS and IRMOS. The Mayall is one of only six U.S. 4-meter class telescopes supporting the 5.7 U.S. 6–10-m class Northern hemisphere telescopes.

If, rather than adopt the transition plan outlined in Section 5 of this document, NOAO were to close the Mayall telescope, the scientific losses would include:

The 300 sq deg Lyman break galaxy survey required by the baryon fluctuations experiment to be performed with Gemini WFMOS

Deep surveys of Northern hemisphere molecular clouds with NEWFIRM; these are adjuncts to JWST star formation science.

NEWFIRM surveys of the evolution of clusters of galaxies directed at questions such as:

Do high-redshift (z > 1) clusters exist? What is the evolutionary history of clustering? (i.e., is there a z dependence on the

cluster-cluster correlation function?) What is the evolutionary history of the galaxy luminosity function (LF) in clusters?

(This provides a discriminant between hierarchical and monolithic galaxy formation scenarios.)

NEWFIRM surveys of red envelope galaxies directed at such questions as:

When and how do elliptical galaxies form (hierarchically or by monolithic collapse)? What are the ages of high-z ellipticals? What is the galaxy LF in the field at high-z and how does it evolve with z?

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What are Extremely Red Objects (ERO)? What is their space density? How are they relevant to galaxy formation/evolution?

Are EROs related to elliptical galaxies, possibly as progenitors?

NEWFIRM surveys, including narrow band surveys, for primeval galaxies directed at questions like:

What is the earliest epoch of galaxy formation/existence? What is the space density of high-z emission line galaxies? How dusty are high z star-forming galaxies?

The WIYN 3.5-m Telescope

The modern design of the Wisconsin-Indiana-Yale-NOAO (WIYN) telescope enables it to deliver images barely distorted from the quality delivered by the site. The median image quality over wide-field is under 0.7″ in the R band. Three foci support a growing suite of instrumenta-tion that capitalizes on the combination of wide-field and excellent image quality. At one Nasmyth focus, the Hydra fiber positioner deploys two sets of ~100 fibers on the one-degree focal surface. The robot was just upgraded mechanically to assure another 10 years of reliable performance. Those fibers feed a bench spectrograph providing a range of spectral resolutions. Upgrades in progress will increase the efficiency with VPH gratings and a new collimator.

The WIYN Tip/Tilt Module (WTTM) provides rapid guiding correction at the other Nasmyth focus. Within a year, it will feed the WIYN high-resolution near-IR camera, WHIRC, which is being produced by the University of Wisconsin, STScI, and NOAO. Success in a pending NSF ATI proposal will allow upgrade to a 2K × 2K format detector. Testing with a prototype near-IR camera showed that tip/tilt correction alone will frequently yield diffraction-limited imaging in the K-band. The wide-field telescope is sufficiently well baffled that the thermal background is only moderately enhanced over an IR optimized configuration.

The re-imaged Cassegrain port supports PI instruments developed by university partner astronomers, including polarimetry and dual channel spectroscopy.

The versatile WIYN port (sharing the Nasmyth focus with WTTM) supports direct imaging and integral field fiber spectroscopy. WIYN currently deploys the University of Hawaii OPTIC camera that provides rapid guiding and high time-resolution imaging with an early generation of orthogonal transfer CCDs. It is serving as a prototype for the NSF ATI-funded QUOTA camera, an 8K × 8K prototype with next-generation orthogonal transfer arrays, which is scheduled for commissioning in 2006.

With the recent award of TSIP funds and substantial institutional support from all four WIYN partners , the WIYN Observatory staff is on track to complete the design and build the One Degree Imager (ODI), a gigapixel CCD camera. It will exploit the full field of the imaging Nasmyth port with new corrector optics and provide zonal fast guiding with orthogonal transfer arrays. The development of this new CCD technology is being carried out in close collaboration with the Pan-STARRS project. The f/6.5 focal ratio enables the use of narrow band filters for high-z emission-line searches, determination of star formation rate density, and mapping of physical conditions in Local Group galaxies. Its high angular resolution over wide field makes it well suited for weak lensing shear surveying as well as strong lensing searches in rich clusters. The superb point spread function produced by local tip/tilt correction will enable accurate

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parallaxes and proper motions as well as stellar population studies in dense regions. Commissioning is scheduled for 2009.

The WIYN telescope has made substantial scientific contributions in selected topics for which its capabilities are ideally matched. The ready access to an imager makes WIYN a telescope of choice for target of opportunity programs to follow light curves of Type Ia supernovae and gamma ray burst afterglows. The consistently high image quality has led to definitive studies of the distribution of gas and dust in nearby spiral galaxies, supporting galactic fountain models, demonstrating the effects of ram pressure on cluster members, and elucidating the relative distributions of molecular, neutral, and ionized hydrogen.

WIYN has strong continuing value for public access in the system of U.S. telescopes. Hydra/Bench, WTTM/WHIRC, plus QUOTA provide a powerful combination of moderate-field imaging, wide-field multi-object spectroscopy, and near diffraction limited IR imaging. WIYN remains in the vanguard of public-private partnerships, and the testimony in Appendix E shows the high value that the partners place on NOAO’s continuing to play an active role. The proposition is for NOAO to maintain the current 40% share for national proposers. At minimum, staying the course for the life of the first term of the WIYN agreement demonstrates that NSF/NOAO can be a reliable member of such a partnership. The partners in the nascent decadal survey projects will look at WIYN (and SOAR) as examples of long-term expectations for the decadal survey goal of creating public-private partnerships for that purpose. When ODI is deployed, it will enable proposal-driven surveys and PI investigations that complement and extend those of Pan-STARRS and LSST. With narrow-band filters and free choice of area and cadence, ODI opens discovery parameter space in ways unique and distinct from Megacam, Suprime Cam, and the large-scale time-domain surveys. Continuing access gives U.S. observers an opportunity for full exploitation of discoveries by other surveys in progress, such as Pan-STARRS, and would remain a viable complement for the period of LSST operations.

The national share of WIYN operations and instrument development is approximately $2M annually. That moderate figure is based on the assumption that WIYN is operated at marginal cost by KPNO and that the operations needs can be met by drawing from the full technical talent pool of NOAO. WIYN observations have supported 16 thesis programs through NOAO and 27 from the partner universities; they have been utilized in the refereed publications shown in Appendix C.

If NOAO were obliged to withdraw from offering a public share of time on WIYN, proposers would lose the opportunity for high-definition NIR imaging with WHIRC and WTTM, including:

Optically obscured regions of galactic star formation. In combination with follow-up spectroscopy, obtain the stellar census and initial mass function, along with variations as a function of local density and spread in formation ages.

Star cluster formation in galaxy mergers. Massive (proto-globular) clusters are detected as a shocked gas product of major mergers; near-IR imaging in obscured merger regions yields the cluster mass function and indications of the IMF.

Surface brightness fluctuations. Near-IR observations in spectroscopically well-studied bulges gives evidence for traces of intermediate-age populations through high sensitivity to AGB variations.

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Galaxy nuclei. Evidence for super-massive black holes depends both on spectroscopic signatures of motion and accurate light profiles. The near-IR sharply reduces the impact of near-nuclear dust lanes as well as obscuration from the disk in spiral bulges.

High-z galaxies. Stellar population diagnostics from the rest-frame optical must be measured in the near-IR for z > 3. Significant samples of distant galaxies now require study, having been identified through the Lyman break, emission lines, or X-ray and radio source identifications.

High-z supernovae. A critical test of the equation of state of dark energy depends on the redshift-distance relation at the cosmic time when expansion starts to dominate over deceleration, at z~1. For the baseline of higher redshift sources, the most efficient detection of SNe Ia is in the near-IR.

Similarly, proposers would be unable to capitalize on the NSF-funded QUOTA camera, and the proposed suite of public science programs:

Gravitational lensing. Strong lensing studies demand excellent image quality; strongly lensed background supernovae with associated time delays pin down the cosmological constants. Weak lensing can be used for mass tomography in clusters.

Large-scale structure and clusters. Star-galaxy separation will be strongly enhanced by routine imaging with FWHM<0.5″. Narrow-band filters allow searches of Lyman alpha emitting galaxies at z~6–7.

Stellar populations. QUOTA will allow detection of RR Lyrae and Cepheid variables out to 10 Mpc in Local Group environments and the distant halo.

KBO search. Higher image quality allows more decisive detection of earth reflex motion.

Proper motions and astrometry. Accurate image centering with QUOTA will provide positions to 0.05 pixel ().005”). Proper motion-based membership in clusters can be demonstrated in three years.

Stellar pulsations. The cluster blue subdwarfs that contribute most of the UV light in the Galaxy can be probed via their fast pulsations (~100 sec) to deduce the evolutionary processes producing their current internal structure.

KPNO Smaller Apertures

It is highly cost-effective to operate modest-scale facilities at the margin with the staff supporting a major observatory. The current operations model shows that by the end of FY06, KPNO will be operating the 2.1-meter telescope in partnership, retaining a 50% public share. In addition, its staff maintains the CCD cameras—Mosaic and a 2K × 2K—on the WIYN 0.9-m telescope, in exchange for ~15% of the nights for proposers.

The value of the 2.1-meter telescope is the provision of a platform for university and government lab-based instrument developers. Proposers then gain shared-risk use of state-of-the-art capabilities. Because its focal ratios are (nearly) identical to those of the 4-meter, the 2.1-

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meter served as the very low cost test bed for commissioning of FLAMINGOS by Richard Elston and IRMOS by John MacKenty before integrating them into the 4-meter system. Jian Ge of the University of Florida is using the 2.1-meter to commission his precision radial velocity spectrograph. He has demonstrated 5 m/s long-term stability, and his innovative interferometric design gives a velocity precision per magnitude comparable to that achieved with echelle spectrographs on 10-meter class telescopes. Retention of a near-term public share will allow proposers from the community to carry out their own planet searches, which will be the payoff for the investment in observatory-supported telescope time required to bring a cutting-edge instrument to reliable performance.

The 2.1-meter still supports a versatile suite of instruments: direct CCD imager, Goldcam optical spectrograph, FLAMINGOS wide-field near-IR imager and spectrograph, and SQIID, the simultaneous 4-color near-IR imager. The oversubscription rate has remained comparable to that for the 4-meter.

In order to get more on-sky time for the CCD Mosaic imager, it is mounted on the WIYN 0.9-m telescope when it is not scheduled on the 4-meter. Its diagonal spans 1.4 degrees, making it the imaging complement for the WIYN telescope. It is still in demand for astrometric studies, monitoring of star and galaxy clusters, and searches for novae in Local Group galaxies.

The cost of retaining a 25% share of the 2.1-meter and a 15% share of the WIYN 0.9-m is approximately $150K per year. In the metric of astronomer nights, a modest marginal investment provides a substantial fractional gain for U.S. proposers.

Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory

CTIO is the U.S. national observatory’s presence in the Southern hemisphere. In the past few years, its responsibilities have evolved from not only operating a suite of state-of-the-art telescopes and instruments, including for 25 years the largest telescope in the South (the Blanco 4-m), but increasingly to providing the infrastructure—scientific, technical and administrative—to support the Southern hemisphere component of the U.S. O/IR system. Over the years, CTIO has developed excellent relations with the Chilean government, universities, and local authorities and has in place the expertise necessary to allow efficient and cost-effective operation in a foreign environment. Its two developed and readily-accessible sites, Cerro Tololo and Cerro Pachón, offer a combination of dark skies with excellent weather and seeing.

The La Serena campus, where CTIO has its headquarters, is shared with Gemini and SOAR, and is adjacent to the headquarters of Las Campanas Observatory. This base facility provides an attractive location that houses a well-motivated staff of scientists and engineers, both local and foreign-sourced. This staff participates in all NOAO programs, including the new flagship projects, the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) and LSST. For both of these projects, a crucial CTIO activity has been site identification and testing. Other activities include support of Gemini operations via NOAO Gemini Science Center (NGSC), support of the TSIP program on Magellan, telescope operations on Blanco and SOAR, and hosting of several other programs, as detailed below. An engineering and technical services unit has evolved from providing new instrumentation and support for the CTIO telescopes to include full partnership in the NOAO Major Instrumentation Program. Its list of present projects includes fabrication for Gemini Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics (MCAO), SOAR instrumentation and facility commissioning, and the building of LSST and TMT site-testing equipment.

Both a TMT in northern Chile, and an LSST on Cerro Pachón or Cerro Las Campanas could be efficiently operated from the CTIO headquarters in La Serena. The NOAO Data

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Products Program (DPP) has a strong component in Chile and together with CTIO’s Computer Infrastructure Support South (CISS) group, provides a highly competent team fully capable of addressing the data challenges of LSST. CISS recently began managing the network at Las Campanas Observatory both on the mountain and in La Serena and together with Gemini, has negotiated the provision of high-bandwidth Internet II access from La Serena to the U.S. Local administrative and logistical services are provided by AURA Observatory Support Services (AOSS). AOSS is structured to respond to the day-to-day needs of its major customers—CTIO, Gemini, and SOAR—and could readily adapt to a larger role in order to accommodate a new facility, even if it were in a much more remote location than present facilities.

The provision of an efficient infrastructure in Chile, allowing cost-effective access to a high-quality observing site, has made Cerro Tololo the preferred location for many experiments and projects, ranging from seismology to astronomy. Recently completed astronomical projects include the Southern part of the 2MASS IR all-sky survey, and the USNO astrometry UCAC catalog. On-going programs include the Southern H-Alpha Sky Survey Atlas (SHASSA), the Global Oscillations Network Group (GONG) solar observatory, the Univeristy of Michigan satellite debris program using the Schmidt telescope and the Panchromatic Robotic Optical Monitoring and Polarimetry Telescopes (PROMPT). (The SWIFT satellite and SOAR are other elements of the PROMPT project, which is directed at GRBs.) Possible future projects presently under discussion include ALPACA (8-m liquid mercury mirror telescope), a much deeper USNO astrometry survey (UNAT), and operation of the 0.6-m Lowell telescope by the Southeastern Association for Research in Astronomy (SARA).

The Blanco 4-m Telescope

At its time of construction 30 years ago, the quality of the Blanco telescope primary mirror (80% of energy into 0.25 arc second diameter) defined state-of-the-art, and the surface quality has only been exceeded with the advent of super-polishing in the last decade. As with the Mayall telescope on Kitt Peak, substantial improvements have been made to the telescope and dome environments, and active optical control of the primary and secondary mirrors has been introduced so that the intrinsic quality of the telescope optics can be effectively utilized. The median image quality is sub-arc second; however, improvements to the primary edge supports and accurate metrology of the primary mirror and telescope structure have begun in the hope of further improving the image quality and stability.

A decade ago, the initiation of the Gemini and SOAR projects led to the idea of a “mini-system” where the high spatial resolution and resultant narrow fields of these two telescopes could be complemented by the wide-field of the Blanco 4-m telescope. The Gemini telescope would be IR-optimized, so SOAR would aim to exploit the visible and would thus take over much of the spectroscopy role of the Blanco telescope. In turn, this would lead to a cheaper, fixed-instrumentation mode for the Blanco and allow optimization for its wide-field role. The addition of the two Magellan telescopes to the Southern hemisphere O/IR system, made available through TSIP time, has not changed this perspective. The two Magellan instruments of most interest to the U.S. community are the spectrographs IMACS and MIKE, which provide additional capabilities to the instruments on Gemini, Blanco and SOAR.

Evolution of the Blanco proceeded via a range of instrumentation with ever-increasing field size: optical imaging—PFCCD with 2K × 2K, BTC with 4K × 4K, Mosaic with 8K × 8K; IR imaging now with 2K × 2K in ISPI; multi-object spectroscopy from Argus with 24 fibers to Hydra with 138, over a 40 arcmin diameter field. In particular, the wide-field prime-focus CCD imaging capabilities of the Blanco telescope have always been state of the art and provided the

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largest AΩ of any Southern-hemisphere telescope; the discovery of dark energy from observations mostly made with the Blanco telescope is a testament to its effectiveness. Major surveys such as SuperMacho, Essence, Deep Lensing, and the Kuiper Belt survey are ongoing or recently completed, and two new surveys have been approved for the 2006–2008 time frame.

In order to continue to provide U.S. astronomers with a versatile and powerful wide-field facility, deployment of NEWFIRM (4K × 4K IR Imager, shared with the Mayall) is planned in 2007 and Dark Energy Camera (DECam, 24K × 24K CCD imager) in 2009. It is noteworthy that each of these instruments will include data reduction pipelines that will produce very large data sets available for the astronomical community. DECam is being provided by a Fermilab-led partnership, the Dark Energy Survey Consortium (DESC), that in exchange for the instrument will conduct the Dark Energy Survey (DES), a deep multicolor 5000 sq. degrees South Galactic Cap Survey occupying 30 percent of the Blanco time between 2009 and 2014. The DES will provide the community with imaging data after a one-year proprietary period, and also detailed object catalogs as the survey progresses. The DESC at present has eight partners including two international; the latter will provide access to the non-public part of the IR survey from the ESO-UK Visual and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA), which will allow combination of optical and IR photometry to produce far more reliable photometric redshifts for the most distant galaxies (z > 1) than the individual surveys.

The NOAO transition management plan described in Section 5 proposes that an operating partner or partners be found to take up a fraction of telescope time for all its legacy telescopes in exchange for a financial contribution to telescope operations. For the Blanco, from 2009 the DESC will take 30% of the time, so allowing for 10% for Chilean astronomers and retaining 50% for PI programs, a maximum of 10% could be offered for such a partnership. The present over-subscription rate (~2.5) would argue that a substantial fraction of time should be kept for community programs. The popularity of the Mosaic imager (63% of time scheduled for 2005B) underscores the lack of such capability for U.S. investigators elsewhere in the Southern hemisphere.

The potential of the Blanco telescope will still be considerable even in the era of TMT, GMT, and LSST. The necessity for both spectroscopic and imaging follow-ups and complementary surveys would make a powerful facility such as the Blanco telescope with fixed instrument complement of (for example) a wide-field prime-focus CCD imager and a new RC-focus optical spectrograph highly effective and complementary to the larger telescopes.

The Mayall and Blanco are two of only six U.S. 4-m class telescopes supporting the 8.7 U.S. 6–10-m class telescopes. At $2.8M and $3.5M per year, respectively, in operating cost (which includes instrumentation upgrades), the NOAO 4-meters are extremely cost-effective. In addition, they are the source of data for over a hundred refereed papers per year, and together with the other Kitt Peak and Tololo public access telescopes, provide observing support to an average of 26 new thesis students each year—i.e., approximately 1/4 of the annual Ph.D.s in astronomy in the U.S.

If, rather than implementing the transition plan proposed in Section 5 of this document, NOAO were to close the Blanco and Mayall telescopes, the scientific losses would include:

The Dark Energy Survey (DES) and its catalog of photometric redshifts for roughly 300 million galaxies out to a redshift of ~1. The DES will be substantially deeper and cover a larger volume than the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Like the SDSS, which has already had an important impact on science, we expect the public archive from the DES will yield rich scientific data and discoveries in a very wide range of topics.

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NEWFIRM high z photometric redshifts for large-scale structure surveys and galaxy mass function (“downsizing”) tests, and reionization epoch emission line surveys for z > 6

Large-scale star formation surveys with NEWFIRM directed at the following questions:

Can we quantify the star-forming history of nearby molecular clouds?

What is the IMF below the brown dwarf limit?

Do brown dwarfs contribute significantly to local dark matter?

Are isolated brown dwarfs more common than companion brown dwarfs?

Can we find brown dwarfs in clusters, the Galactic disk, and the halo?

What is the kinematic, metallicity, and age distribution of field brown dwarfs?

Can we quantify the range of lifetimes for the disk accretion phase?

Can we catalog candidate post-accretion phase YSOs as a first step toward examining disk properties (evolution of solid and gas phase) during the period when solar systems develop and mature?

Community science with DECam, including Kuiper belt searches, proper motion surveys of galactic globular clusters, the luminosity function of cool white dwarfs, globular cluster tidal streams, galactic plane cataclysmic variable star searches

Follow-up of space-based surveys with DECam, such as the present ChaMPlane survey

Extragalactic science with DECam, including very deep stellar surveys of the whole Magellanic Cloud and bridge region, a micro-lensing survey towards the Fornax dwarf galaxy, dwarf galaxy searches in nearby groups, pencil beam surveys of the Universe, and, particularly together with NEWFIRM, strong lensing in galaxy clusters, and QSO catalogs

The SOAR 4-m Telescope

CTIO is presently engaged in integration and commission of the Southern Astronomical Research (SOAR) 4.1-m telescope, and in exchange for 30% of the time, will operate the tele-scope until 2020 on behalf of the partnership (see Appendix D). SOAR partners (NOAO, Brazil, University of North Carolina, Michigan State University) also provided the several first-generation instruments. CTIO has built the SOAR Optical Imager, the commissioning instru-ment, and presently is building the first second-generation instrument, the SOAR Adaptive Module (SAM), which will correct for the Ground Layer using a Raleigh Laser Beacon. This development is relevant for the proposed use of Ground Layer Adaptive Optics (GLAO) on the future extremely large telescopes. SAM and other SOAR instrumentation largely emphasize the performance push in the visible, particularly bluer wavelengths, and a very high throughput, low-resolution spectrograph, such as the UNC-built Goodman Spectrograph, using holographic gratings, is expected to have overall throughput not too inferior to GMOS on Gemini. SOAR’s initial instrument complement also includes Spartan, a 4K × 4K IR camera, and OSIRIS, an imaging spectrometer built by Ohio State University and supported by CTIO. An IFU spectro-

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graph is being provided by Brazil, with dewar and focal plane development at CTIO, and an Echelle spectrograph is proposed as a second-generation instrument.

SOAR partner University of North Carolina is developing remote observing tools that will allow its astronomers to efficiently operate SOAR from their campus, and may provide a model for future efficient and more cost-effective access by general observers for all CTIO-operated facilities. With a large instrument complement permanently installed on the three focal stations, the exploitation of the best observing conditions will only be realized in a queue-scheduled environment, and such an operations model will be developed as resources permit.

CTIO Smaller Telescopes

The smaller CTIO telescopes (1.5-m, 1.3-m, 1.0-m, and 0.9-m) are operated by the Small and Medium Aperture Research Telescopes System (SMARTS) consortium, http://www.astro.yale. edu/smarts/, an arrangement whereby NOAO retains 25% access in exchange for providing telescopes and instruments. Other consortium members provide instrumentation and operating funds, and lead institute Yale also provides project management and the Yale 1.0-m telescope.

Consortium funding is all non-NSF. The consortium purchases technical support from CTIO, and the only CTIO operations contribution is a small amount of scientific interfacing and management. The consortium has also been able to provide instrumentation: the OSU dual IR/CCD Imager Andicam, OSU 4K CCD imager, and the University of Montreal 2K IR Imager CPAPIR (Caméra Panoramique Proche InfraRouge) have enabled a variety of new projects, ranging from synoptic programs requiring observations of a few minutes per night, to large surveys requiring several months of observing time. In its first 18 months of operations, data were collected for the major portions of 11 theses; 25 graduate and undergraduate projects were commenced and many completed; 31 students had hands-on observing experience; and 9 students had observatory operations experience. These statistics refer only to consortium members, statistics for NOAO users are recorded in Section 6 of this document. SMARTS refereed publications are presented in Appendix C.

SMARTS has proven to be a successful and exemplary collaboration for all partners; discussions are currently under way to extend the agreement for an additional three years (as SMARTS II) when the current agreement expires at the end of semester 2005B .

The Gemini Observatory

The U.S. has an approximately 50 percent share in the two Gemini 8.1 meter telescopes. These two telescopes, located on the superb sites of Mauna Kea and Cerro Pachón, feature excellent image quality and very low infrared emissivity. The Gemini North telescope currently offers the following observing capabilities: optical imaging and moderate-resolution, multi-object optical spectroscopy (GMOS-North); infrared imaging and low-resolution spectroscopy (NIRI), adaptive-optics-enhanced infrared imaging and spectroscopy (ALTAIR plus NIRI); and mid-infrared imaging and spectroscopy (Michelle). The Gemini South telescope currently offers the following observing capabilities: optical imaging and moderate-resolution multi-object optical spectroscopy (GMOS-South); moderate-resolution infrared spectroscopy (GNIRS; developed by NOAO); mid-infrared imaging and spectroscopy (T-ReCS); and high-resolution infrared spectroscopy (Phoenix, developed by and on loan from NOAO). Capabilities under development for Gemini North include: infrared integral-field spectroscopy (NIFS) and a laser-guide-star upgrade for the ALTAIR adaptive optics system. The following capabilities are under

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development for Gemini South: dual-beam coronagraphic infrared imaging (NICI); multi-object near-infrared spectroscopy (FLAMINGOS-2); high-resolution optical spectroscopy (bHROS); and a multi-conjugate adaptive optics system (MCAO) that will provide a relatively stable point spread function over a 100-arcsec field, and attached infrared imager (GSAOI).

The two Gemini telescopes are among the most advanced and sought after facilities in the U.S. observing system. Gemini is most differentiated from the other U.S. 8–10 meter telescopes in its several high-performance infrared capabilities, in the area of adaptive optics, and through its emphasis on excellent image quality. The fact that Gemini operates primarily in queue mode also differentiates Gemini from other U.S. 8–10 meter telescopes. This queue capability makes Gemini the natural tool for studying variable phenomena, for rapid follow-up (e.g., gamma ray bursts, supernovae), and when rare observing conditions are required (best 20 percentile image quality; or low water vapor for best mid-infrared background).

The NOAO Gemini Science Center (NGSC)

Within the structure of the International Gemini Observatory, each partner agency created a national Gemini office (NGO) to spearhead its participation in Gemini. The NGOs form the nodes of communication between Gemini and each partner country, providing input and advice to the Gemini Observatory on partner perspectives and communicating to the national communities the capabilities and science opportunities that Gemini presents. The United States Gemini Office is part of NOAO and is called the NOAO Gemini Science Center (NGSC).

The primary duty of the NGOs is to provide support for Gemini users in their respective countries in all aspects of user assistance, apart from executing the observations themselves. NGSC staff also provide support to the U.S. community in Gemini data reduction assistance and use of the Gemini Science Archive. In order to represent U.S. interests in Gemini, the NGSC Director is assisted by a science advisory committee, the U.S. Gemini SAC, that consists of eight to ten prominent members of the U.S. astronomical community. A strong and productive working relationship between the NGSC staff and the Gemini staff is essential to successfully supporting the community of Gemini users.

NGSC staff members are currently based at the NOAO offices in Tucson, Arizona and La Serena, Chile. The La Serena location provides the opportunity for frequent interactions between NGSC staff members and their Gemini counterparts working at the Gemini Southern Base Facility co-located on the AURA campus. The NGSC staff based in La Serena also have easy access to the Gemini South telescope for training, queue observing, participation in instrument commissioning activities, and support of U.S. instruments (e.g., Phoenix). The Tucson location also presents advantages. NGSC staff based in Tucson can travel easily to perform outreach to the U.S. astronomical community (e.g., lectures on Gemini at universities, meetings in the U.S.). Tucson is also the best location for collaborative work with NOAO’s other divisions. NGSC achieves parts of its mission by working closely with the following Tucson-based NOAO teams: NOAO staff organizing the telescope proposal and TAC process; the NOAO Major Instrumentation Program on instrumentation for Gemini; the NOAO/NSO Newsletter editor; and the NOAO Director. Therefore, NGSC must maintain staff in both La Serena and Tucson. Frequent use of videoconferencing, other network-based tools, and visits of NGSC staff members between Tucson and La Serena help the staff to work together effectively. The one location where NGSC would benefit from a greater presence is the Gemini Northern Base Facility in Hilo, Hawaii. NGSC staff do visit Hilo for Gemini North queue observing, training, and Gemini meetings. However, NGSC would benefit by raising the level of interaction between its staff and the Hilo-based Gemini staff in order to foster a higher level of

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collaboration between the two staffs and an even higher level of fluency of NGSC staff with the Gemini North telescope, instruments, and operations. NGSC is raising its presence in Hilo by inaugurating regular visits of NGSC staff for extended periods to the Gemini Northern Base Facility in Hilo. By facilitating visits of most/all NGSC staff to Hilo, more individuals are exposed to opportunities for collaboration and learning. By 2011, NGSC will have recruited NGSC staff members based permanently in Hilo. Regular visits to Hilo of NGSC staff from Tucson and La Serena will connect the Hilo-based NGSC staff members to the rest of the NOAO staff. Extended visits of Tucson-based NGSC staff to Hilo and eventually permanent NGSC staff in Hilo will facilitate participation in Gemini North instrument commissioning activities, just as currently happens in Chile where the AURA Observatories campus is shared by NOAO and Gemini.

The Independent Observatories

The independent observatories, owned and operated by state or private universities, private research institutions, or by consortia, represent the majority of O/IR facilities, especially among small telescopes. Many of these observatories have traditionally had visitor programs, through which a small fraction of the time was given to unaffiliated astronomers. However, the time allocation processes are diverse enough that this approach never cemented the facilities together in the perspective of the community.

The Telescope System Instrument Program (TSIP), the highest-ranked program in the “moderate” initiatives category in the decadal survey, was devised to address this issue directly. As envisioned in the decadal survey, TSIP has three specific goals:

(1) To provide new funding resources that the independent observatories can use to create new capabilities (i.e., instruments) on their telescopes—in particular, capabilities that community consensus judged necessary and desirable

(2) To provide, through a uniform peer-review process, new telescope time to the broad community on these independent facilities

(3) To change the overall perception of the system from one in which competition among facilities is the dominant driving force to one in which collaboration and complementarity take on more prominent roles

The third goal depends on giving everyone an apparent stake in all the facilities, while also acknowledging the initiative and enterprise of the independent observatories in raising private funds required to build and operate their own telescopes. A new NSF program, PREST (Program for Research and Education with Small Telescopes), holds similar promise for achieving essentially the same goals for the privately-funded smaller telescopes.

Since TSIP began in FY 2002, it has aimed to achieve a steady state in which 20–30 nights per year are available on each of the major independent telescopes. This has been largely success-ful, and roughly this number of nights has been available to the entire community on the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET), the MMT Observatory, and the Keck Telescopes, with a smaller number on the Magellan telescopes, and, in the future, the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT). Each facility offers a particular capability that makes it an essential component in the overall O/IR system.

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The Keck telescopes are the most mature of the large telescopes. They have a large number of well-functioning instruments. In particular, observations with HIRES, the high resolution optical spectrograph, have permitted major advances in QSO absorption lines and extra-solar planets. The W. M. Keck Observatory has also been a pioneer in adaptive optics and has built a number of state-of-the-art instruments, including the TSIP-funded OSIRIS (OH-Suppressing Infrared Imaging Spectrograph) to take advantage of this expertise. TSIP time on Keck has always been highly over-subscribed.

The Hobby-Eberly Telescope is a niche facility with limited though important capability. For spectroscopic observations of small samples of faint objects, it has been effectively used by a small number of community researchers.

The MMT has been slow to upgrade its instrumentation since the primary was converted to a single 6.5-m mirror. The intent has been to push in the direction of wide-field science, and now, with the delivery of the optical imager, MegaCam, and the multi-fiber fed spectrographs Hectospec and Hectochelle, MMT will have some unique capabilities. TSIP is funding a work horse, multi-object IR spectrograph, MMIRS, for the MMT and Magellan telescopes. In addition, the MMT is used effectively as a test bench for innovative approaches to adaptive optics, such as adaptive secondaries.

The Magellan telescopes, which provide Southern hemisphere access, have only recently come to TSIP. Like the MMT, their focus has been on moderately wide-field instruments, thus providing a capability quite complementary to Gemini South.

The Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) is scheduled to become operational in 2006. TSIP is funding MODS-2, moderate-field multi-object optical spectrograph. LBT will offer the greatest light gathering power and community exposure to interferometry.

Observing Resources in the Ground-based O/IR System. NOAO plays a key role in ensuring public access by providing a complete suite of observing capa-bilities via access to NOAO-operated facilities and to those operated by private observatories, whose facilities are made available either through partnerships with NOAO or through the TSIP program. NOAO also works with the community to establish a collective understanding of the need for observing capabilities, and with the private observatories, to develop an approach through TSIP that provides access to those capabilities.

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2.5 Evolution to 2011

The next five years will be a period of continued transition for NOAO. The trends in telescope use can be seen in the observing proposal statistics. The number of proposals received in each year (both A and B semesters) is shown in Figure 2.2. The oversubscription rates (nights requested divided by nights available) are shown in Figure 2.3. Large telescopes are those with apertures of 6.5-m or greater and include both Gemini and the independent telescopes with public time available through TSIP. Medium telescopes are those in the 4-m-class, and include the Mayall, Blanco, WIYN, and SOAR. Small telescopes are the 2.1-m and smaller telescopes. Note that during the last few years, community interest in the large telescopes has risen, even though the oversubscription rates for these telescopes has been above 3. At the same time, pressure on medium and small telescopes has remained constant, even though the number of nights available on these telescopes has diminished (see Figure 2.3).

050

100150200250300350400450500

2002 2003 2004 2005

FIGURE 2.2 Number of Proposals Received By Aperture Size: 2002-2005

LargeMediumSmall

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FIGURE 2.3 Oversubscription by Aperture Size 2002-2005-A

LargeMediumSmall

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Figure 2.4 shows the nights per year currently available on telescopes of the three size categories and our projection for 2010. This projection is based on the proposed NOAO transition plan in which the 50% of time on the Mayall, Blanco, and Lynds telescopes is privatized. It also assumes the restoration of the Telescope System Instrumentation Program to its original funding level, and a successful and effective implementation of the PREST program to supplement the number of nights on small telescopes. (Figure 2.4 also shows the estimated nights that would be available without support of the TSIP and PREST programs.

2.6 Risks

We believe that we have developed a viable plan for the evolution of the system and the facilities that NOAO operates and provides access to. Privatization slightly lowers the demand, and will allow the continued operation of existing facilities for the benefit of a significant fraction of the community. It will also permit the maintenance of the observatory infrastructure upon which many other facilities in the system rely. Finally, it allows NOAO to manage the system by controlling the sequence and rate at which capabilities are privatized and permits an ongoing discussion with the community to guide these decisions. Other approaches are possible, but we believe that they pose unmanageable risks for the system and for the community.

Gaps in capabilities or in access to them can create significant problems because of the way that scientific research is carried out. Access to small and medium sized telescopes is necessary to establish a level playing field for access to large telescopes. Integrated proposals that can lay out a complete plan for attacking a scientific problem are much more effective and compelling than those that can only address a small piece of an issue.

0

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FIGURE 2.4 Public Nights Available 2002 - 2010 (est.) under Transition Plan[** = Without TSIP & PREST programs]

LargeMediumSmall

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We believe that a healthy, coherent, and productive O/IR ground-based observing system is based on four essential components:

1. An evolution of capabilities that is dynamically responsive to the needs of the community—both in terms of the capabilities offered and the rate at which they change

2. A restoration of TSIP to at least its previous level ($4M/year) in order to provide enough access to maintain the integrity of the system and allow continuity in the decisions that guide the program

3. Maintenance of the current NOAO infrastructure: not only to retain our existing telescope partners who make up a substantial part of the system, but also to make privatization of certain telescopes attractive to potential new partners

4. Development of a more effective system of data archiving and access for all ground-based O/IR facilities to somewhat mitigate the decreasing level of peer-review access to medium-sized facilities.

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3 NOAO AND THE DECADAL SURVEY INITIATIVES

3.1 A GSMT in the JWST Era

In January 2001, AURA established the New Initiatives Office (NIO) with the goal of designing and beginning construction of a 20–30-m Giant Segmented Mirror Telescope before the end of this decade, and to complete its construction in time to complement the scientific mission of the James Webb Space Telescope. From the outset, AURA recognized that producing a GSMT on this time scale would represent a substantial effort whose ultimate success will depend on the combined efforts of the national observatories, the U.S. independent observatories, U.S. industry, and possibly international partners, both astronomical and industrial. The objectives of the New Initiatives Office are:

Early involvement of the community in defining the capabilities of a GSMT so that the resulting facility will meet its scientific aspirations

Development of a public/private (and possibly international) partnership to design and later build a GSMT

Engagement of the community during the design and development phase, including active participation in developing innovative concepts for instrumentation and adaptive optics systems

Working closely with the community to develop an operations model for GSMT that maximizes scientific output and encourages active use by scientists throughout the U.S.

Working closely with the community to evolve the U.S. system of telescopes and instruments so that it has the capabilities, infrastructure, and funding needed to fully exploit GSMT: this is critical to ensuring that scientists throughout the U.S. can plan and propose scientific programs for such a telescope

Undertaking the necessary transitional measures at NOAO that will allow it to support operations of, and community access to GSMT

Since its inception five years ago, the NIO has accomplished a great deal, owing in large part to a significant re-alignment of resources within NOAO aimed at ensuring timely completion of a GSMT and access to it by the full U.S. community.

In 2002, NIO assembled a broadly representative group of astronomers—the GSMT Science Working Group (SWG)—to define the areas where a GSMT can make truly pioneering scientific advances and to recommend to the NSF the kinds of investments needed in order to meet the design and technical challenges faced in constructing a telescope of GSMT’s size and complexity. Issued in June 2003, the first report of the GSMT SWG, “Frontier Science Enabled by a Giant Segmented Mirror Telescope,” summarizes the scientific potential of a 20–30-m GSMT; a soon-to be-released second report, “A Giant Segmented Mirror Telescope: Synergy with JWST,” describes the unique capabilities of each of these major new facilities, including the added value of JWST and GSMT working together to achieve their primary scientific goals. The SWG continues to function as a valuable forum

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for exchange of information between the ongoing TMT and GMT projects and North American astronomical community, and with counterpart science working groups in Europe and Japan.

NIO submitted a proposal to the NSF for support of the Design and Development (D&D) phases of the GMT and TMT projects. The goal is to ensure that at least two distinct designs have reached a level of maturity sufficient to assess performance, cost, and technical risk—thereby maximizing the probability that at least one 20–30-m project can be carried to completion. Simultaneously, AURA (through NOAO) is serving as an equal partner with the California Institute of Technology, the University of California, and ACURA to complete the D&D phase for the TMT project—a heavily segmented 30-m telescope that builds on the heritage of Keck. In this role, NOAO represents community interests in ensuring that the capabilities and operations modes of this telescope reflect community aspirations.

NOAO has worked with its TMT partners to engage the community, both as active participants in the TMT Science Advisory Committee and as participants in developing design concepts for first and second-generation TMT instruments. The initial phase of this effort reached fruition in spring 2005 via an open announcement of opportunity for members of the North American community to participate in these early design efforts, and selection of eight teams from 16 consortia involving more than 200 individuals from 34 institutions.

NOAO is also working with the TMT project to develop operations models for TMT. As this effort matures over the next year, we plan to involve a cross-section of the community in evaluating various operations modes (queue; campaign; classical; hybrid) in carrying out the mix of programs that might characterize early use of the telescope.

NOAO intends, through its System Committee and via one or more focused community workshops, to begin to examine the “landscape” of U.S. astronomy in 2015, under the assumption that LSST and GSMT will by that time be operational, and that the system must provide the capabilities needed to support and follow up programs proposed for and carried out by these facilities. The goal here is to create a “design reference mission” for GSMT as a tool to examine the capabilities needed in order to plan and carry out integrated science programs involving the 20–30-m telescope as a key component.

Over this period, the commitment to NIO activities has grown from 1% to 10% of NOAO’s budget. (Thus, the re-distribution of resources sought by the Senior Review is already well underway at NOAO).

3.2 The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST)

Three major reports from the National Research Council have recommended construction of a survey telescope capable of scanning the visible sky every few days to deep limiting magnitudes. Analysis shows that the data stream from such a facility, operated in survey mode with a standard observing protocol, can be used to achieve major advances in many different areas of astrophysics: constraints on the properties of dark energy and dark matter through studies of supernovae and gravitational lensing; characterization of the small bodies in the solar system, including near-Earth asteroids and Kuiper Belt objects, the latter of which provide a

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fossil record of dynamical interactions in the early solar system; analysis of galactic structure and the role of mergers in the formation of the Milky Way; and opening the time window through study of variability on time scales from seconds to years.

Two designs have been proposed to achieve the goals of the NRC studies: a group (~25) of small (~1.8-m) telescopes that in sum would achieve the recommended throughput; and a single 8.4-m telescope with a large field of view. A prototype of the multi-telescope approach has been funded and is under construction in Hawaii (PanSTARRS).

NOAO is pursuing the design of a single large telescope (LSST) in partnership with several other organizations. When both designs are mature (in approximately two years), a choice can be made between them on the basis of science requirements, cost, and risk. Accomplishments to date include:

Formation of the LSST Corporation to carry out the project; the founding members are NOAO, the Universities of Arizona and Washington, and Research Corporation (see: http://www.lsst.org/About/LSSTcorp.shtml ). Seventeen organizations have either joined the corporation or committed resources to it.

Formation of the LSST project group, with Victor Krabbendam at NOAO as deputy project manager in charge of the NOAO-based team that will be responsible for the design and construction of the telescope and site facilities. The current plan calls for Department of Energy (DOE) laboratories to deliver the camera.

Adoption of an optical design that will provide a 3.5-degree field

Site selection narrowed down to three: San Pedro Martir, Las Campanas, and Cerro Pachón

Development of a set of science requirements

Submission of a proposal to NSF for the design and development phase; the proposal has been favorably reviewed, and we are currently awaiting final word on the disposition of the proposal. A similar proposal is currently being prepared for submission to the DOE.

Letting a contract with private funds to the University of Arizona/Steward Observatory Mirror Laboratory for the fabrication of the primary mirror

Development of an operations simulator that has established the feasibility of achieving the core science goals in ten years with the adopted design and a standard observing protocol

NOAO’s specific contributions to the project include:

Formation of the LSST Science Working Group (SGW), chaired by Michael Strauss, to amplify the science case and corresponding requirements for the survey facility recommended by the NRC study (see http://www.noao.edu/lsst/SWG/ TowardRefMissionLSST.pdf for the SWG report). The LSST is being designed to meet those requirements.

Funding to establish the core project team to carry out the design and construction of the telescope, enclosure, and support facilities.

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Initiating a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with LSSTC to provide business services (personnel, contracting, purchasing, etc.) for the corporation.

The work of the LSST team has been described at several AAS meetings and on the Web site. Community input has been invited through the Web site and via presentations and workshops in various locations around the country.

3.3 Partner and Developer of the National Virtual Observatory (NVO)

NOAO scientists and staff are active participants in efforts by the U.S. astronomical community to work with NASA and NSF to develop a National Virtual Observatory (NVO). In addition to work that NOAO staff carry out in coordination with the official NVO project, much of our Data Products Program is aimed at connecting the ground-based O/IR community and their data to the NVO tools and services of the present and the future.

The ground-based astronomical facilities—both private and public—have lagged behind the space-based observatories in providing scientifically useful data products to the broad community. NOAO is working to address both the technical and institutional reasons for this by developing an end-to-end data flow system that automatically collects the NOAO data streams, processes the data using data reduction pipelines, stores the raw and reduced data in an archive (the NOAO Science Archive, NSA), and provides access to the data, for both proprietary and non-proprietary use, through a Web-based portal. Interfaces to the NOAO Science Archive and the portal follow NVO-established protocols; data can thus be provided to other NVO-compliant interfaces, and our portal can integrate access to the NOAO data with access to other archives. In its prototype phase, the NSA already holds about five terabytes, split between raw data flowing from the NOAO telescopes and fully processed survey data products.

While managing the NOAO data is the obvious place to start, we are hoping that this effort provides useful tools for others, particularly the private observatories, to make their data accessible as well. We have arranged with those facilities in which we are partners to handle the non-NOAO data in much the same way, and we will be discussing similar services with other observatories and individuals who are responsible for large data sets.

The goal of this program is to establish a data center for ground-based O/IR data on behalf of users of such data. This model is motivated by two factors. First, the scale of what we are trying to collect and make useful will dwarf all other components of the NVO data within a few years. Projects such as LSST, Pan-STARRS, and DES, and instruments such as ODI, DEC, and NEWFIRM will produce petabytes of data—far more than any space observatory or ground observatory at any other wavelength in the coming decade. The second factor is the issue of curation. Not only must data continue to be available long after its creation, but it must be scientifically curated as well. What is its quality? What processing has been applied to it? How can it be used? All of these questions can be addressed by having a long-lived scientific institution responsible for its storage and use.

In order to carry these activities out, NOAO is partnering with NCSA, which has expertise in physical storage and the transport and serving of large volumes of data. This expertise, together with NOAO’s long-standing experience in data reduction algorithms and systems, and a close connection to the data providers and community of users, will result in a collaboration with both the vision and strengths to form a major part of the NVO.

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The benefits of this program and NOAO’s participation in the creation of the NVO are numerous. Data from NOAO and other facilities can be easily and effectively used by multiple researchers. The NVO model enables new kinds of science through the development of tools that can combine, process, and visualize data in new ways. In addition, this capability substantially broadens the impact of much of what NOAO and others in the community do. No longer is physical access to a large telescope needed to undertake state-of-the-art research. Data from well-curated archives and powerful, integrated tools will enable discoveries and understanding by anyone with a computer and a connection to the Internet. The potential for students and researchers at any level to benefit from the availability of this system of data, tools, and services is immense.

NOAO supports the ground-based O/IR system by providing access to observing resources, by developing new instruments and facilities, and by providing data reduction, analysis tools, and archive services. NOAO assists observers through its peer-reviewed proposal evaluation process, through telescope scheduling, and with data acquisition. Currently, NOAO's Data Products Program provides processing and analysis tools, as well as archiving facilities and archive access and analysis tools. This “end-to-end” approach ensures both rapid reduction and analysis of data as well as public availability to the broad user community after an appropriate proprietary period. NOAO also takes the lead in working with the community in developing new instrument concepts (through its Major Instrumentation Program) and next-generation facilities (through the New Initiatives Office). NIO is also charged with developing community-wide perspectives on needed technologies, and 20-year road maps for future facilities.

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4 NOAO BEYOND 2011

By 2016, NOAO will be the operating partner of a suite of forefront astronomical facilities: a Giant Segmented Mirror Telescope (GSMT), a Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), the National Virtual Observatory (NVO), the Gemini telescopes, and complementary supporting facilities. NOAO will be the public entry point to the system of ground-based optical, near-IR, and mid-IR facilities available to U.S. astronomers. We will work with the community and funding agencies to identify and prepare the facilities needed in the years beyond 2020. We will share the results and excitement of our field with the public, educating and inspiring as we do so.

4.1 NOAO as Partner in the U.S. System of Ground-based Facilities

NOAO has nearly half a century of experience in building and operating optical and near-IR observing facilities. This experience is vital to active development and operation of forefront research facilities. Working with talented and strong partners in the extended astronomical community, in the years beyond 2011 we will be playing major roles in the operations of GSMT, LSST, and the NVO. NOAO will continue to support the utilization of the Gemini Observatory’s 8-m telescopes by the U.S. community. In addition to these endeavors, we will continue to partner in the operation of the complementary 2-m to 4-m telescopes (e.g., WIYN, SOAR, Blanco, Mayall, KPNO 2.1-m), which provide significant survey capabilities and serve as development sites for new instrumentation and observing techniques.

Operating GSMT in the JWST Era

In 2016, we expect that some 40% of the work performed by NOAO will be the scientific operation of GSMT.

LSST Operations and the NVO

In 2012, we expect that approximately 20% of NOAO’s total effort will be operation of the LSST and the interface of the database to the community through the NVO.

LSST will open the time domain for exploration. Fully exploiting that opportunity will require additional telescopes with a range of apertures and locations. To achieve its programmatic goals of area, depth and time coverage for dark energy science, LSST will be executing a pre-planned sequence of observations. The most efficient use of scarce resources will be for other telescopes to respond to triggered notification from LSST of the detection of rapid variability. Optical flares from previously undetected sources could arise from M stars, cataclysmic variables, intergalactic novae in the Local Group, gamma-ray burst afterglows, or

FIGURE 4.1 Rendering of design adopted for the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), as of February 2005. Courtesy: Thirty-Meter Telescope Project

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non-thermal mechanisms in active galactic nuclei. Prompt follow-up for light curves and low-dispersion spectra with a dedicated program on the national 4-meter telescopes can distinguish among the multiple possibilities, with the goal of determining the budget for transient energy release on a range of short timescales. Note that any flux level detectable in a 15-second exposure with LSST can be monitored with a one-minute or shorter cadence on a 4-meter telescope.

Similarly, LSST can act as a trigger for follow-up of two types of events critical for detection of extra-solar planets. Occultation light curves can be measured for stars of moderate brightness through continuous monitoring on 4-meter imagers. These observations would be activated by minute fractional decreases in the light from stars with highly accurate relative photometry in the LSST database. LSST will extend the MACHO experiment for Local Group galaxies and the Galactic bulge in the course of its frequently repeated coverage. The slowly varying light curves from microlensing of the background stars are occasionally punctuated by the caustic crossing of a planet. The sudden increase in brightness will be the LSST trigger for 4-meter follow-up. It is important to note that, while the LSST database will provide a unique combination of area coverage, depth and time resolution in multiple bands, other telescopes are still required for narrow-band optical and all

near-infrared imaging over wide fields. The national 4-m telescopes were designed and are being instrumented to optimize those complementary capabilities.

NOAO Gemini Science Center (NGSC)

The NOAO Gemini Science Center will continue to be the first point of contact for U.S. astronomers for all matters related to the Gemini Observatory. U.S. scientists will propose for time through NOAO and obtain support from NGSC in preparing their observing plans and in processing their data. NGSC will continue to assist the Gemini Observatory in efforts to improve operations and scientific productivity. We will continue to help with the support of instruments, particularly those we have built for Gemini (e.g., GNIRS). The Gemini Observatory will have a productive scientific life for decades to come, and NOAO, through the NGSC, will be part of this future.

The Gemini Observatory is currently undertaking an ambitious program to procure its next generation of major instruments (e.g., HRNIRS, WFMOS, GLAO). NOAO (through NGSC and its Major Instrument Program) anticipates being a partner in the design, construction, commissioning, and support of several of these major new instruments. Instrument development will continue in the next decade.

FIGURE 4.2 Design of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) as of August 2004. Courtesy: LSST Corporation

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Operations Partner of Complementary and Supporting Facilities

In 2011, NOAO will be supporting partnerships that operate moderate-aperture telescopes (e.g., SOAR, WIYN, Mayall, Blanco) in service of a range of valued scientific programs. These will include using new instruments to perform excellent “stand-alone” science, as well as providing complementary data for programs being undertaken by larger facilities (e.g., large aperture ground-based telescopes, ALMA, JWST, etc.). While our share of some of these facilities will have been reduced compared to 2000 (goal of 50% of the Blanco and Mayall), our extensive experience in operating cost-efficient and effective facilities will be shared with our partners in continuing the scientific productivity of these facilities. These telescopes will be kept at the forefront of astronomy through the development of new instruments built by our partners in operating these telescopes. According to the long range plan Strategies for Evolution of U.S. Optical/Infrared Facilities, full divestment of the Mayall and Blanco telescopes would occur towards the end of the period 2011 to 2016, if NSF budgets continue to be flat. This is not scientifically desirable, but may be necessary. The scientific value for time domain studies of a global network of 4-m telescopes needs to be considered by the next decadal survey.

Developer and Builder of Innovative Major Instruments

An essential component of the ground-based O/IR system of the future is a steady stream of state-of-the-art instruments and new technologies enabling the telescopes in the system to explore the Universe and improve our knowledge of its constituents and physical processes. These instruments will tend to be built collaboratively by the institutions specializing in that area. The Major Instrumentation Program (MIP) of NOAO is designed to be the vital integrating facilitator that can connect small innovative university programs to serve the needs of the GSMT for breakthrough instrumentation.

A particular responsibility on a national scale is development of new instrumentation technologies and integration of new instruments into a complete astronomical system, including observatory operations and user support, data pipelines and researchable archives, and public outreach and education. NOAO, by virtue of its long history and continuing activities in all these areas, is uniquely qualified to provide these connections between instrumentation proper and the broader astronomical goals, as well as to promote the development of critical future technologies.

Compared to other instrumentation groups in the U.S., NOAO and its MIP are uniquely equipped to connect instrument development with observatory operations and user support, with large science archives such as the NVO, and with public outreach and education efforts. NOAO is connected directly to all these important areas, and the instrument scientists at NOAO are involved with one or another of these areas. As a result, the instruments NOAO builds for common-user facilities like Gemini are better supported and documented, better coupled to ongoing education and public outreach efforts, and more ready for direct connection to the NVO. Again, these are activities that a construction-sponsoring observatory may not consider necessary to pay for as part of an instrument construction contract; such activities nevertheless further the overall interests of the astronomical community. For these purposes, NOAO should support MIP long-term.

In addition, NOAO has valuable contributions to make in the areas of project management, systems engineering, and commissioning and integration. While these strengths are not unique to NOAO, NOAO’s MIP is currently recognized as a community leader in these areas. As instrument projects become larger and more complex (and more expensive), these areas become

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more critical to the success of the projects. The MIP expects to leverage these strengths through its contributions to partnerships with other instrument-building institutions on funded construction contracts, for example, to build instruments for GSMT, Gemini, and other large telescopes.

More fundamentally, the community will need new technologies to be developed and made available broadly. NOAO has had a productive past in assisting industrial and academic partners in the development of new technologies (from IR detectors to mirror fabrication and polishing) necessary for the next generation of instrument and telescope construction. We anticipate continuing such efforts as part of our MIP.

We see a substantial need for a capability to test and characterize detectors, from the optical to the mid-IR, in a quantitative and uniform fashion. This testing facility would be an essential part of working relationships with detector vendors to guide their development of new technologies. The need for such a facility is not properly met now (in 2005) and will be completely unmet in the future as other detector testing groups continue to get out of this business, one at a time. This is an area where NOAO’s MIP has made substantial contributions in the past (e.g., the ALADDIN and ORION detector programs), and could contribute again. The challenge lies in the inability of a soft-money instrumentation funding program, such as Gemini’s, to cover the costs of such a facility through instrument construction contracts. There are MIP infrastructure costs such as lab supplies, equipment maintenance, general software licenses, and divisional supervision, which are not recoverable from direct charges against funded construction work.

In the next decade, we see an active future for NOAO’s Major Instrumentation Program, where challenging instruments are being built in collaboration with other institutions for the most advanced telescopes. We anticipate that the instrument construction itself will be financially self-supporting, and that NOAO will support within MIP future-oriented activities such as technology development, designs for future instruments, and promoting the connections among instrumentation and the broader needs of the astronomical community (through archive and NVO connections) and the general public (through education and outreach).

4.2 NOAO as the Ongoing Entry Point to the System of O/IR Facilities

As described in Section 2, the system of ground-based O/IR facilities is a dynamic and evolving one, with ongoing development in every decade to come. NOAO will not only provide access to facilities, but also serve as the entry point for the community to the suite of facilities that will comprise the O/IR system in 2011 and beyond.

NOAO will work with partners in the O/IR community to facilitate the continued improvement of these existing facilities and to provide public access to the excellent capabilities that will be available through the largest telescopes. We anticipate that additional small and moderate telescopes will be brought into the O/IR system, and NOAO will be working with the NSF to help this system grow, adding capabilities that the entire community will be able to utilize in return for support of the development of these capabilities from the NSF.

4.3 NOAO as the Catalyst for System Development Beyond 2020

NOAO is one of the catalysts for communication between the astronomical community and the federal funding agencies (i.e., NSF, DOE, and NASA). As we did with Gemini in the past, and as we are doing with LSST and GSMT in the present, NOAO will continue to facilitate, support, and enable development of the major facilities needed by the U.S.

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community of the future. By 2011, LSST should be nearing completion and a GSMT (whether the Thirty-Meter Telescope or the Giant Magellan Telescope) will be under construction, ready to begin operation contemporaneously with JWST. NOAO will also be working actively with the U.S. and international communities to plan the next generation of ground-based facilities. Our focus will be on two potential facilities: a 50-m–100-m diameter filled-aperture telescope, and an O/IR interferometer. These activities are being led by the NOAO-based AURA New Initiatives Office, which is charged with engaging the energies of the community in planning next-generation facilities, and developing the partnerships needed to bring them to fruition.

A 100- m Telescope

There are already nascent efforts to understand the scientific potential of a 50-m to 100-m diameter-filled aperture telescope (e.g., OWL, the Overwhelmingly Large Telescope), and NOAO, along with the GSMT Science Working Group, are already collaborating with our counterparts at the European South Observatory (ESO) to understand the technical challenges that need to be overcome to build such a giant telescope. Our vision is an ALMA-like partnership (i.e., international) to design a giant filled-aperture telescope and complete its construction between 2020 and 2025. The scientific drivers will be terrestrial planet formation, star formation, and galaxy formation.

O/IR Interferometer

NOAO has also begun to study the unique science enabled by a distributed aperture telescope with a collecting area of several hundred square meters, baselines of up to 1 km, and prime operating wavelengths in the near-infrared. With the support of the NSF Polar Division, such a telescope might well be designed to exploit the extraordinarily favorable atmospheric conditions (low ground- and upper-level turbulence; low water column) believed to be characteristic of Antarctic sites (Lawrence et al 2004). Toward this end, NOAO is planning a series of workshops aimed at developing both a detailed science case for a large infrared interferometer, and a technology road map that would outline the investments and demonstration experiments that would be needed in order to build such a facility. A key milestone will be the preparation of a white paper as input to the 2010 NRC decadal survey. Our long-term vision is a public-private-international partnership to plan and build such a facility in the 2020 time frame.

Identifying the Facilities of the Future

What will come beyond 2020? We are not sure, but the scientists and engineers of NOAO’s New Initiative Office will be working hard in 2015 to identify what technology development, new instruments, and/or new facilities will be needed in the decades ahead and will work with the community and funding agencies to ensure that collectively, the necessary work is completed to ensure the continued vitality of the O/IR system.

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4.4 NOAO Education and Public Outreach in 2011 and Beyond

Current Activities

NOAO is rapidly becoming a world leader in astronomy-related education and public outreach, thanks to a broad range of formal and informal programs targeting such diverse audiences as teachers, students, the general public, advanced amateur astronomers, museum visitors, and the media. In the years beyond 2011, in which U.S. observational astronomy is likely to involve more public/private partnerships, the NOAO Public Affairs and Educational Outreach group (http://www.noao.edu/outreach/) will increasingly serve as the public’s connection to the active astronomical research community.

Our core funding from the NOAO budget, supplemented by significant funds from competitive grants and the re-invested revenues from our public programs, will permit us to continue to develop innovative, exemplary programs for the nation’s students, teachers, and general public. With the compelling science and exciting outreach possibilities promised by the future decadal survey facilities, LSST and TMT, the PAEO portfolio will continue to emphasize:

A wide range of telescope observing experiences and research opportunities for students and educators from the middle school level through formal undergraduate/graduate training, including a top-notch Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program, across many wavelengths and via emerging data archives

Kitt Peak Visitor Center as an “around-the-clock” daytime and nighttime public outreach center, and a source of remote training and programming for museums, planetaria, science and nature centers across the country

Vibrant Spanish-language astronomy education and outreach in both hemispheres

Significant contributions to the emerging fields of engineering and technology education via hands-on optics kits and student internships

Multifaceted public information and media support, and a variety of communications channels with the astronomy community

Access to the telescopes and general milieu of Kitt Peak and NOAO South, which are a key element and attraction of these programs.

Partnerships with Educators

Through our Teacher Leaders in Research Based Science Education (TLRBSE) program, NOAO has pioneered the use of astronomical observing as a unique tool in teacher retention and renewal, and as a way to foster genuine teacher-student driven research. The original vision of this program has been expanded to include return visits of small teacher-student groups to Kitt Peak for observing during the school year, plus teacher-led observations with the Spitzer Space Telescope and (potentially) VERITAS; this approach is now being adapted for the era of the LSST and a mature NOAO Science Archive, along the road to the NVO. Continued access to observing time on research-quality telescopes such as the WIYN 0.9-meter and the Kitt Peak 2.1-meter are a critical element of these experiences.

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NOAO also continues to be a flagship site of the Astronomy Society of the Pacific’s (ASP) Project ASTRO and Family ASTRO programs. The astronomer-teacher partnerships fostered by this program and its pre-tested, easy-to-learn, hands-on activities has reached more than 16,000 local students, and it will continue to be a mainstay of local NOAO educational outreach.

Partnerships with the General Public

Kitt Peak attracts more than 60,000 public visitors per year, with the vast majority served by the staff, exhibits, tours and special programs of the Kitt Peak Visitor Center. These programs include the most in-depth night-sky observing experiences in the world. By the next decade, we intend to raise sufficient private funds to expand the Visitor Center significantly, and to explore the construction of a dormitory-like facility that would provide independent housing for public guests who would participate in science outreach programs, from astronomy to earth science to nature photography.

NOAO is beginning a new effort in public outreach in partnership with the Astronomical Society of the Pacific and the Association of Science-Technology Centers called “Astronomy from the Ground Up,” which will train educators and staff from small science and nature centers in effective astronomy outreach programming, via both distance learning and face-to-face work-shops. If this project becomes as successful as NSF expects, it will create a new niche for NOAO and the Kitt Peak Visitor Center as a national (or even international) astronomy outreach training center, including small public observatories (such as Mamalluca in central Chile.)

Emerging Programs in Spanish Language Astronomy Education

Recognizing the growing importance of astronomy in Chile and our natural connections to telescope operations there, NOAO has stepped up its activities in Spanish-language astronomy outreach. These activities range from the online

CURRENT NOAO ASTRONOMY EDUCATION PROGRAMS

Innovations in Informal Science Education (Science centers, museums, after-school programs)

Family ASTRO: training leaders for community-based astronomy programs

Kitt Peak Nightly Observing Programs and Visitor Center programs (largely self-supporting)

Astronomy Camp Programs, some with UA Flandrau and UA Extended University

Hands-On Optics (3 years, NSF Informal Science Education, with SPIE and OSA) Creating six optics teaching kits, training science center educators, after school program leaders nationwide

Revealing the Invisible Universe: From Nanoscopes to Telescopes (3 yrs. NSF Informal Science Education, with UA Flandrau Science Center) Training undergraduates to design exhibits and programs

Astronomy from the Ground Up (NSF Informal Science Education, with the ASP and the Association of Science Technology Centers, starts March 2005.) Professional development in astronomy for science center educators.

Educational Program Prototype Development: Preparing for future programs at NOAO

ASTRO-Chile Teacher/Student program (ongoing) (Internet2 videoconferencing, light pollution student studies; teacher workshops between NOAO N and S.)

The Virtual Cosmos: A Public Portal to the National Virtual Observatory (NASA) 3 years, with UC Berkeley, ESO, STScI, and others: Creating tools for NVO

Native American Educational Materials/ Best Practices Center (NSF seed money, ongoing):Teaching and learning across cultures, emphasis on Tohono O’odham Community College)

Educational proposals have been submitted for VERITAS, LSST, TMT, and the Dark Energy Camera programs.

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Spanish Language Astronomy Materials Education Center (www.astronomyinspanish.org) to joint funding with the Gemini Observatory of the RedLaSer portable planetarium in the La Serena region and surrounding areas, to a series of bilingual educational videoconferences between Tucson and La Serena dubbed “ASTRO-Chile.” This activity is poised to proceed even further depending on the availability of modest increases to NOAO core funding or by LSST and TMT outreach funding.

New Specialty in Optics and Engineering Education

The NOAO educational outreach group is currently the lead organization for the design, development, and production of six major “kits” for informal optics engineering education via an NSF grant-funded program with Society of Photo-optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) and Optical Society of America (OSA) named “Hands-On Optics.” This new intiative, which has great potential for expansion through such areas as adaptive optics and interferometry, will constitute a significant contribution to the emerging and underserved field of technology education in the U.S.

Ongoing Source of Lively Information on Astronomy

NOAO will continue to expand its media and public information activities via the Web and traditional news outlets, both independently and through its ongoing partnerships with the Gemini Observatory, WIYN, SOAR, and the emerging LSST and TMT projects. Examples of the latter include our primary editorial responsibility for the www.tmt.org Web site, and our participation in every aspect of promotion and outreach preparation for the LSST. The NOAO Newsletter, exhibits and presentations at major meetings, and creative use of Webcasting technologies will ensure that the community remains well informed about new research and partnership opportunities.

CURRENT NOAO ASTRONOMY EDUCATION PROGRAMS

Promotion of Teacher (Student) Research

Teacher Leaders in Research Based Science Education (TLRBSE) (NSF/ESIE): Teacher retention and renewal program utilizing astronomical research (ongoing)

Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) (NSF)

Spitzer Space Telescope Teacher and Student Observing Program (NASA): 2 years, with Spitzer Science Center. Six teacher-led research teams working with Spitzer and NOAO scientists

TLRBSE Teacher Observing Program (TOP): Students doing astronomical research for science fair projects

New Models for Teacher Professional Development

Project ASTRO: Teacher-scientist partnerships

Southern Arizona GEMS Center (initial state and optics industry funding) (ongoing with UA): Professional development workshops to promote exemplary instructional materials

Collaborative to Advance Teaching, Technology, and Science (CATTS) (5 years, NSF GK-12 with UA): Science graduate students working with teachers in the classroom

Instructional Materials Development

Spanish Language Astronomy Education Materials Center (NSF seed money) Finding and promoting the best astronomy education materials in Spanish

Investigating Astronomy (4 years, NSF Instructional Materials Development) with TERC and ASP (creating a new national high school, standards-based astronomy curriculum)

Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer EPO project (with UC Berkeley, NASA, start late 2005, several years): Developing kits and teaching materials for teaching about the infrared)

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5 TRANSITION MANAGEMENT PLAN

5.1 Boundary Conditions

Optimizing the science return from NOAO facilities demands that the switch to partner time allocation be delayed to the end of the transition period 2006–2010. This follows from the underlying assumption governing national research resources, i.e., that the larger the pool of applicants for astronomical facilities, the more likely it is that a major discovery will result. On the other hand, advancing the first light date of LSST and GSMT requires that the savings from divestment be realized in full at the beginning of the period. The natural solution in the face of these conflicting demands is a transition that is linear with time. Given the lean market, this also enhances the likelihood that partnership opportunities will be oversubscribed.

The fact that we have been able to construct a transition plan whose main feature is continuity with NOAO’s current program is itself a testament to the advanced state of NOAO’s development of decadal survey projects. To kickstart the LSST, NOAO sought three other founding partners, modified the WIYN agreement to serve as a corporate constitution, formed a Science Working Group to build the science case, recruited and fully funded a telescope and site design group, and assisted in the preparation of a design and development proposal which is currently pending for 2005–2008 funds. The total NOAO investment of 2002–2004 program plan funds was $3.8M.

Similarly, NOAO enabled community involvement in GSMT by forming a Science Working Group, assembling in the AURA New Initiatives Office a team of engineers who developed a point design, commencing site testing on three continents, using state of the art techniques and newly invented technology, such as atmospheric tomography with multi-aperture scintillation sensing, and merger of this group with the California Extremely Large Telescope (CELT) and the Canadian Very Large Optical Telescope (VLOT) groups. There would be no public access project without these efforts, the cost of which to the NOAO program totaled $5.9M over the period 2002–2004. NIO staff have been a significant recruitment resource for key TMT engineering positions. The AURA proposal for $39M Design and Development Phase funds for GSMT is pending.

Development of the NOAO Science Archive has similarly paved the way for the O/IR node of the NVO. NOAO has furnished the project scientist of the NVO.

5.2 Solution

A possible end point in 2011 follows the example set by the Small and Moderate Aperture Research Telescope System (SMARTS) consortium at CTIO. In 2003, SMARTS, a group of seven institutions led by Yale University, and including NOAO and the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), assumed control of both time scheduling and day-to-day operations of the small telescopes at CTIO. (The consortium purchases engineering support from CTIO as needed.) NOAO retained a 25% time share in exchange for providing telescopes and instruments, which are consistently oversubscribed by our users by a factor of two. From NOAO’s perspective, this model provides too little peer reviewed access to the medium aperture public facilities. Instead, we propose to retain a 50% share of the Blanco, Mayall, and 2.1-m telescopes for peer-reviewed, merit-based public access via the NOAO TAC process. Unlike the SMARTS arrangement, however, we do not propose to cede management of day-to-day-operations to other consortium members. (Though the principal

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SMARTS scientist has been able to do this effectively, the larger telescopes are more complex and have multiple instruments. )

TABLE 5.1 Projected Annual Transition Savings 2005–2010

Telescope NOAO Share 2005

NOAO Share 2010

Annual Savings ($ Mil.)

Mayall 0.80 0.5 $0.831

WIYN 0.40 0.40 —

Lynds 1.00 0.5 $0.25

Blanco* 0.90 0.5 $0.356

SOAR 0.30 0.30 —

SMARTS 0.25 0.25 —

Total 3.65 2.45 $1.437

* Chile retains 10% of Blanco time; 30% to be reserved for Fermilab DES in years 2009–2014

The initial and final state of ownership of observing time can therefore be designated

(Table 5.1), and a linear transition between them is adopted. Next, we can specify the revenue that KPNO and CTIO will gain from this process. To create Table 5.2, we have taken the minimum values of the partnership pricing specified by the AURA Observatories Council in 2004. This revenue is to be transferred to the LSST and GSMT programs. More aggressive divestiture, retaining a public share of only 25% on the Blanco, Mayall, and Lynds (2.1 meter) telescopes, would increase the annual saving from $1.4M to $3.1M. However, in the view of the AURA Observatories Council and the NOAO Users Committee, a 25% share is considered unacceptably small for the O/IR community’s scientific needs and to ensure U.S. competitiveness.

TABLE 5.2 Transition Budget Annual Revenues and Increases FY06–FY10 (Dollars in Thousands)

Per Year Revenues/ Increases FY06 FY07 FY08 FY09 FY10

KPNO New Revenue $ 250 $ 350 $ 481

CTIO New Revenue $ 356

LSST/DPP Increase $ 481

GSMT/MIP Increase $ 606 $ 350

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Operations models for LSST and GSMT will be developed during their design and development phases. However, for present purposes it is helpful to have an order of magnitude estimate of the operations resources required. For LSST, we suppose a staff level equivalent to that of the Magellan telescope at Las Campanas Observatory, combined with an archive staff equivalent to the MAST group at STScI. In round numbers, this totals 50 FTE. DOE resources will also be sought to support LSST operations. It is a clear underestimate to suppose that GSMT could be operated by a staff of the size of the Keck Observatory. However, that is our working assumption (100 FTE), and Canada and other partners are expected to add further manpower. We therefore transition resources from KPNO and CTIO into GSMT and LSST in the ratio 2:1. This is shown in Figure 5.1, where we also show LSST and our Data Products Program merging, and GSMT and our Major Instrumentation Program merging, albeit temporarily. This allows the 50 and 100 FTE targets for LSST and GSMT, respectively, to be realized. The overlap of professional skills in these groups is the closest possible. Naturally, we emphasize that we are showing here only a schematic illustration of the transition to be carried out. In reality, LSST will also be able to recruit from a skilled telescope operations group at KPNO and CTIO, when operations commence in 2012. This will be a further important contribution of NOAO to LSST.

Finally, we note that the transition described here is incomplete. It is bounded by the

period recommended for study in the Senior Review. Operations of LSST and GSMT are tentatively scheduled to begin in 2012 and 2016, respectively. Whether to retain shares of NOAO’s legacy telescopes beyond 2016 can be considered at a later time. The scenario described by the O/IR Long Range Planning Committee was one in which NOAO retained

Number of FTE’s constrained to be constant. The demarcation between the GSMT program and MIP and between the LSST program and DPP will be re-established in 2010, when siting decisions by the projects have been made. Externally-funded employees (e.g,. in KPNO, CTIO, and MIP) are not shown here. [Key to Programs: MIP = Major Instrumentation Program. DPP = Data Products Program. CAS/CFO = Central Administrative Services/Central Facilities and Operations. PAEO = Public Affairs and Educational Outreach. NGSC = NOAO Gemini Science Center.]

FIGURE 5.1 Distribution of FTE's by NOAO Program FY04 - FY11under Proposed Transition Plan

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

CTIO

KPNO

MIP

GSMT

LSST

DPP

CAS/CFO

Science

PAEO

NGSC

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40% and 30% shares of the WIYN and SOAR telescopes, respectively, but no other facilities at KPNO and CTIO. Other scenarios may be preferable, particularly if the present flat budget constraint is relieved. There are persuasive arguments for continued public access to small telescopes, and these are put forward in the LRPC’s report. They apply equally well, or better, to 4-meter class telescopes.

5.3 Robustness

The transition plan just described is stable and viable in a variety of environmental conditions. First, there is the possibility that GSMT or LSST will experience a capital funding delay. The transition plan can be stretched out in response to any timeline to which the decadal survey projects relate.

Second, there is the possibility that KPNO or CTIO partners will come forward more slowly than anticipated. In this eventuality, unless GSMT and LSST are similarly delayed, NOAO needs to make a clear decision not to delay the investment in the decadal survey projects. If any of the milestones in Table 5.2 is not met, compensating transfers need to be made in NOAO programs. The NOAO Work Breakdown Structure, published in each of our annual program plans and Appendix A, is easily interpreted, so that desired savings can be identified at the program level.

Third, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that Congress will succeed in raising the NSF’s budget. In that case, divestment could be halted or reversed.

Finally, there is also robustness in the mode of re-allocating NSF funds from observatory operations to design and development of LSST and GSMT. New NSF resources are at the disposal of the LSST and GSMT project managers and their respective Boards, whether they flow as cash from AST through the Design and Development Phase grant channel, or as additional in-kind contributions from NOAO. In all cases, newly-funded LSST and GSMT positions will be advertised by the projects. Qualified NOAO staff should get priority for hiring into these new positions, consistent with AURA policy. But the selection is in the hands of the hiring project manager, and does not need the consent of the NOAO Director. This practice follows that of the successful start-up models for the Gemini and Paranal Observatories. As discussed in Section 3, NOAO has efficiently and productively utilized re-allocated funds in the formative years of the LSST and GSMT projects.

5.4 Opportunities

In the previous section, we considered mostly negative perturbations to the transition plan, but there are also possibilities for deviations that would create exciting new scientific opportunities for NOAO users. Some of these arise from the TSIP program. One might arise from the need of GSMT partners for early divestment of their medium and large-aperture telescopes in order to direct funding to GSMT, as was the case with Caltech and Palomar Observatory almost twenty years ago. A 50% share of the Keck Observatory could be acquired by NOAO through a $6M/year TSIP grant. Management of Keck could even be transferred to NGSC in Hilo. However the details of such an agreement might turn out, the benefits to NOAO’s user community would massively offset the loss of observing opportunities at KPNO and CTIO.

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At the other end of the scale of possible TSIP endeavors, a new partnership operating the Blanco telescope, for example, could use TSIP funds to replace the old RC spectrograph with current VPH technology. The Mayall and Blanco telescopes are not eligible for TSIP funds with their present operators.

5.5 Accomplishments

Continuing this trend according to our Long Range Plan, NOAO commences the transition period in FY 2007 with $7.0M out of $26.9M in program plan funds dedicated to decadal survey programs (LSST, GSMT, and DPP, i.e., NVO). That is 26%. If we include TSIP at an estimated $4.4M in FY07, the proportion rises to 36%. If the present transition plan is adopted, a further $1.4M of NSF funds is re-directed (Table 1), and using the FY07 base, including TSIP, we reach 40% by 2011. The global objective of the Senior Review is $30M out of a total of $120M facilities funds, or 25%.

The fact that these O/IR decadal survey projects have progressed so far is in itself a reason for confidence in the transition plan presented here—provided that it is endorsed in principle by the NSF Senior Review.

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6 PERFORMANCE INDICATORS AND PROGRAM METRICS

In accordance with the requirements of AURA’s cooperative agreement with NSF, NOAO regularly measures, tracks, and monitors all aspects of observatory and program performance. These data are periodically updated and submitted to NSF via NOAO annual reports (http://www.noao.edu/dir/proj-rep/proj-rep-04.pdf), the NOAO Newsletter (http://www.noao.edu/ noao/noaonews.html), the NOAO Quarterly Report (http://www.noao.edu/dir/q_rep/q2-05.pdf), the NOAO Long Range Plan, (http://www.noao.edu/dir/lrplan/) and other ad hoc documents requested by NSF Astronomical Sciences (AST) or the NOAO Program Review Panel (PRP). The methodologies used to measure performance or effectiveness naturally differ among NOAO programs, but all address the five broad areas of responsibility with which NOAO is charged under the current cooperative agreement:

Public Access and Observing Support: Enable scientific research by “providing forefront observing facilities for U.S. astronomers, based on the scientific merit of proposed research.”

Strong Science Program: Conduct a broad program of research in astronomy for its intrinsic value… “maintaining a scientific staff that is scientifically productive and technically current.”

Instrumentation and Data Products: Develop “new instruments, techniques, and software for astronomical observations, data reduction, and data analysis.”

Decadal Survey Initiatives: “Lead, enable, and facilitate community-based efforts to plan and develop proposed federally-funded initiatives, especially GSMT, LSST, the National Virtual Observatory, and the Telescope System Instrumentation Program.” This charge includes developing partnerships with U.S. universities and non-federally funded observatories to “maximize the observational capabilities available to the entire U.S. community.”

6.1 Public Access and Observing Support

Telescope Subscription Rates

Telescope and instrumentation subscription rates are regularly published in the NOAO Newsletter. Subscription rates, and rate trends over time, are a salient measure of community demand for NOAO facilities, and one index of the ongoing effectiveness of NOAO telescopes (including the “TSIP-sponsored” telescopes of the private observatories) in meeting the observing needs of PI science. (See Figure 2.2 of this document.)

Summary Data on Observing Programs

Comprehensive lists of programs, names and institutional affiliations of investigators, number of nights and telescopes awarded time are published in the NOAO quarterly report; the two-semester summary appears in the NOAO Annual Report. These lists are useful not just for tallying the proposals and observers for a given year (Table 1), but also for assessing the geographical, institutional, and demographic distribution of U.S. scientists who are directly affected—whether as PIs, Co-Is, or students—in the conduct of a successful observing program (Figure 6.1).

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On an annual basis, over 400 proposals are awarded time on NOAO telescopes; typically, about one-quarter are thesis programs. In 2004, 742 U.S. scientists were associated with these proposals. As might be expected, the largest fraction of investigators come from states with strong astronomy research institutions—e.g., California, Maryland, Arizona, Massachusetts. In 2004, approximately one-third of the successful observing proposals were awarded to PIs at the following five institutions: (1) University of California, (2) Space Telescope Science Institute, (3) Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, (4) University of Arizona, and (5) California Institute of Technology.

TABLE 6.1 FY04 Annual Summary TAC Proposals

• U.S. observing proposals awarded time via NOAO TAC (2 semesters ending July 31, 2004)

429

• Individual U.S. scientists associated with successful observing proposals (excludes NOAO scientific staff)

742

• Graduate thesis programs 91

114

2

20

137

68

29

33

25

24

21

16 16 14

13

10

67

5

3

3

2

1 1

1

1

14

31

99 MD

12

7

7

6

6

4

3

2

1

1

13 DC

FIGURE 6.1 States of Origin of U.S. Scientists Awarded Time on NOAO Telescopes: CTIO, WIYN, Gemini, HET, KPNO, and Keck* (2 Semesters Ending July 31, 2004)

1

* Excludes NOAO scientific staff investigators

2

14

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Science Publications Based on Research at NOAO Telescopes

The scientific productivity of NOAO facilities is also reflected in the number of papers published by observers using data obtained at NOAO telescopes (Figure 6.2). Comprehensive bibliographical information is published in the NOAO Annual Report (http://www.noao.edu/dir/proj-rep/proj-rep-04.pdf) and on the NOAO library Web site. As CTIO and KPNO enter into more telescope partnerships, the partner publications (not included in the figure above) will be added to our publications metrics (see Appendix C).

While the number of scientific papers that derive from research at NOAO telescopes is

undoubtedly an important measure in assessing the value of NOAO facilities, gauging the influence or impact of these publications is a more elusive metric. We systematically track citations of those papers using NOAO data. As shown in Figure 6.3, citations to papers based on NOAO telescopes published between 1997–2002 are comparable to those based on the Hubble Space Telescope.

Benn and Sanchez (2001) studied shares of citations for telescopes of different types for the years 1991–1994 and 1995–1998. They limited their scope to the 1,000 highest impact ISI papers for which contributing telescopes could be identified (i.e., excluding review papers, etc.) The 1991-–1998 averages were 1 m+2 m, 9%; 4 m, 18%; 10 m, 7%; submillimeter+millimeter, 3%; radio, 4%; HST, 15%; and other space telescopes, 44% ( = 100%). According to information supplied to the ING Visiting Committee in 2005, they are preparing a follow-up study of high impact science covering the period 1999-–2003. Their conclusion is that ground- based telescopes of 4-m and smaller continue to contribute more than half of the top science from all ground based facilities (covering all wavelength ranges). In the 4-m class (3.0-m - to 6.5-m), the same telescopes as before are the strong contributors, with the top -four ([sic]) being, in ranked order:, AAT, CTIO Blanco, WHT, CFHT, KPNO Mayall.

194

133

172

140

177

143

141

129

8

131

155

7

157

121

18

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

FY99 FY00 FY01 FY02 FY03 FY04

Science Publications Using Data from NOAO TelescopesFY 1999 - FY 2004

NGSCCTIOKPNO

FIGURE 6.2 Publications resulting from observing with NOAO telescopes are reported annually. Between 2000 and 2003, the nights available for observing fell by some 30%

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Support for Multi-Wavelength Programs

he following two figures show the number of multi-facility proposals received by the NOAO TAC for semester 2005B. In the words of one multi-facility user: “It is extremely impor-tant to have national ground-based facilities which can support and follow on [to] the discoveries of NASA’s expensive, but short-lived, Great Observatories and their eventual successors.”

FIGURE 6.3 Citations to Publications Using Data from NOAO Telescopes Normalized to HST Citations (HST = 1.0; Source: ADS)

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

'97 '98 '99 '00 '01 '02 '03

NGSCKPNOCTIO

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

SIM GALEX Chandra Swift Spitzer X-ray HST

FIGURE 6.4 Multi-Facility Proposals Received for Space-based Facilities (Semester 2005B)

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Telescope Uptime Statistics

Under the Government Performance Reporting Act (GPRA), NOAO is required to monitor, on an annual basis, the number of hours lost to mechanical/equipment failure on the NOAO tele-scopes in a special report submitted to NSF at the end of each fiscal year. This metric compares, at the beginning of the fiscal year, the annual hours of telescope observing time estimated to be avail-able on the NOAO telescopes (net of scheduled maintenance hours and hours projected to be lost to weather), to the actual number of hours at the end of the fiscal year. The resulting number of hours lost to equipment failure (“downtime”) is expressed as a percentage of the total available hours. The average percentage of observing hours lost to equipment problems at the NOAO telescopes—whether measured in the GPRA report or in internal reports of the observatory directors—typically averages less than 5% per year: a remarkable 95% “uptime” rate in telescope operations.

6.2 Broad Science Program and Strong Scientific Staff

Science and Science Education Publications of NOAO Scientific Staff

The charge to conduct a “broad program of research in astronomy… for its intrinsic value” with a scientific staff that is “scientifically productive and technically current” has lead to more rigorous metrics for tracking staff productivity—both in terms of publications as well as in service to the broad U.S. community, in the form of invited talks, appointments to national committees, advisory groups, and review panels. The annual list of NOAO staff science publications is published in the Annual Report.

Career Citations of NOAO Scientific Staff

Another measure of the impact of staff papers is the cumulative number of citations over their careers. Figure 6.7 (right) shows these citation data for the current NOAO staff as compared (left) with the citations for tenured staff in the top ten U.S. astronomical institutions.3 In terms of career citations, the data show that NOAO staff perform similarly to their tenured peers.

3 Kurtz, M.J. et al.2005, JASIS, 56, 111. In Figure 6.7, normalized citations are citations per author; the author of a two-author paper “scores” a half-citation each time his/her paper is cited. As defined by the National Research Council in its publication Research-Doctorate Programs in the United States, the current top ten ranked astronomy research institutions

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

SN Keck 2MASS CFHT mm+ SDSS

FIGURE 6.5 Multi-Facility Proposals Received for Ground-based Facilities(Semester 2005B)

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are 1.California Institute of Technology, 2. Princeton University, 3. University of California-Berkeley, 4. Harvard University, 5. University of Chicago, 6. University of California-Santa Cruz, 7. University of Arizona, 8. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 9. Cornell University. 10. University of Texas at Austin.

93

53

0

80

48

0

97

47

8

141

58

7

110

49

0

0

50

100

150

200

250

FY00 FY01 FY02 FY03 FY04

FIGURE 6.6 Publications of NOAO Scientific Staff: FY00-FY04

PAEO NOAO S. Tucson

FIGURE 6.7 Citations by Year of Ph.D. NOAO Staff (Right) and Tenured Staff of Top 10 Research Institutions (Left)

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Value of Scientific Staff Grants; Invited Talks and Community Service

Additional measures of NOAO staff leadership and service, both in science and in the U.S. community, can be broadly gauged by such measures as the number and dollar value of proposals and grants applied for and awarded, science awards and prizes, invited talks, and service on national reviews and advisory committees. These data are shown in the following tables.

6.3 NOAO’s Support of Decadal Survey Initiatives

NOAO’s steadily rising investment in the major O/IR decadal survey projects (GSMT, LSST, NVO/Data Products, and TSIP) is shown in Figure 1 of this document.

6.4 Leadership in Development of New Telescopes, Instruments, and Techniques

NOAO’s telescope and instrument projects leverage non-NSF funding and effort on a national scale. Leveraged funding includes Department of Energy (DOE) support for LSST; Moore Foundation funds for TMT; Canadian Foundation for Innovation and Hertzberg Institute of Astrophysics funds from ACURA; UNC/MSU/LNA-Brazil funds for SOAR, and DOE funds for the Dark Energy Camera.

TABLE 6.4a New Telescopes: in Design, Construction, or Commissioning

Design Construction Commissioning

LSST (w. LSST Corp) PROMPT (UNC) SOAR

TMT (w. CELT & ACURA)

TABLE 6.2 Value of Grants and Proposals Submitted by NOAO Scientific Staff FY02 – FY04 (Dollars in Thousands)

Proposals/FY FY02 FY03 FY04

Submitted to NSF $ 1,640 $ 9,463 54,571

Submitted to NASA 3,340 2,950 3,044

Funded by NSF — — 74

Funded by NASA $ 692 $ 1,914 2,555

TABLE 6.3 NOAO Scientific Staff Invited Talks Service Activities and Awards FY02 –FY04

Activities/Awards FY02 FY03 FY04

National Committees 69 83 84

Invited Talks 73 75 75

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TABLE 6.4b NOAO Major Instrumentation Projects in Design, Construction, or Servicing

Design Construction Commissioning

HRNIRS (w. U. Florida) NEWFIRM (w. U Md) GNIRS

GWFMOS (w. AAO)

SOAR AO Module

DECam (w. Fermilab)

Data Products Program/NOAO Science Archive

TABLE 6.5 NOAO Archived Data 2002–2005 (in Gigabytes)

Catregory/Year 2002 2003 2004 2005 (est.)

Ingested Survey Data Products

307 733 341 711

NOAO Data Stream Cache

0 0 439 2,600

Cumulative Archived Data

307 1,040 1,820 5,131

Downloaded 4.6 39.9 274.5

Telescope System Instrumentation Program (TSIP) and Adaptive Optics Development Program (AODP)

TABLE 6.6a TSIP Funds Requested and Awarded FY02–FY04 Proposal Cycles (Dollars in Millions)

Proposal Year FY02 FY03 FY04

Funds Requested $ 7.2 $ 6.3 $ 19.0

Funds Awarded $ 3.5 $ 3.6 $ 4.1

TABLE 6.6b AODP Funds Requested and Awarded FY03 – FY04 Proposal Cycles (Dollars in Millions)

Proposal Year FY03 FY04

Funds Requested $ 10.0 $ 16.6

Funds Awarded $ 2.9 —

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6.5 Public/Private Partnerships and Collaborations

Ongoing Partnerships

WIYN Observatory: University of Wisconsin, the University of Indiana, Yale University, and NOAO. WIYN built and operates the 3.6-m telescope on Kitt Peak.

The Southern Observatory for Astronomical Research (SOAR) telescope corporation is a consortium consisting of the University of North Carolina, Michigan State University, LNA Brazil, and NOAO. SOAR has completed a 4.2-m telescope on Cerro Pachón.

LSST Corporation

Small and Moderate Aperture Research Telescope System (SMARTS) consortium

Thirty-Meter Telescope (TMT) Consortium

University of Maryland/KPNO Mayall 4.0-m partnership

New Collaborations in 2004:

Dark Energy Camera (DECam) collaboration: FermiLab and University of Illinois agreement with NOAO to use 30% of the CTIO 4-m for five years in return for community use of the Dark Energy Camera: http://decam.fnal.gov

6.6 Science Education, Training, and Outreach

Support for U.S. Graduate Theses in Astronomy

KPNO, CTIO, and the NGSC play a vital role in supporting U.S. graduate education in astronomy—not just in granting time to thesis programs, but also in subsidizing travel and lodgings for graduate students during observing visits. (Figure 6.6).

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FIGURE 6.6 Graduate Thesis Observing Programs at NOAO Telescopes 1998-2004

GeminiKPNOCTIO

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TABLE 6.6 Travel Support and Other Subsidies to Graduate Thesis Observers (Dollars in Thousands)

Year 2002 2003 2004

KPNO $ 25.0 $ 23.9 $ 26.4

CTIO $ 31.6 $ 30.0 $ 36.1

Undergraduate Education

Both KPNO and CTIO conduct annual Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) site programs. The programs allow between four and six undergraduates to spend a period of 12 weeks at one of the two observatories, where they work closely with individual NOAO scientists on substantive research projects. Both observatories subsidize REU students attendance at a subsequent AAS meeting, and nearly all REU graduates publish their research in poster papers at AAS. To the extent possible, NOAO tracks the post-graduate careers and occupations of all REU students—whether they go on to graduate school in science or pursue careers in the private sector in a scientific occupation—as one indicator of the longer-term effects of its two REU programs. We also track (and publish in our annual reports) the scientific papers deriving from REU projects published by the students (usually in collaboration with their NOAO scientific “mentors”).

Educational Outreach, Teacher Training, Public Outreach

Number of teacher participants in NOAO’s TLRBSE and ASTRO programs.

Astronomy Education Review Website (http://aer.noao.edu/ ): per month averages: 150,000 hits and 6,600 visits from 5,500 separate sites.

Steadily increasing revenues from Kitt Peak Nightly Observing Program (NOP) and Advanced Observing Program reflect great popularity of these programs, bolstered by innovative marketing efforts of Public Affairs/Educational Outreach staff.

TABLE 6.7 TLRBSE & ASTRO Participants 2002–2004

Year Participants

2002 288

2003 432

2004 403

TABLE 6.8 Kitt Peak Visitor Center Annual Summary of Program Participants and Other Visitors

Program/Year FY04

Guided public tours* 16,186

Self-guided tours 11,229

School groups K-12 662

Special tours 1,421

Nightly Observing Program* 6,895

Advanced Observing Program 218

General tourists-est. 38,000

Total (est.) 62,103

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REFERENCES CITED

Astronomy and Astrophysics Survey Committee, Board on Physics and Astronomy, Space Studies Board, National Research Council, 2001. Astronomy and Astrophysics in the New Millennium: Panel Reports. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.

Benn, C. and Sanchez, S. 2001. Scientific Impact of Large Telescopes. Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 113:385.

Bennett, C.L. et al. 2003. First-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Foreground Emission. The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series 148:97.

Blake, C. and Glazebrook, K. 2003. Probing Dark Energy Using Baryonic Oscillations in the Galaxy Power Spectrum as a Cosmological Ruler. The Astrophysical Journal 594:665.

Brown, M.E. et al. 2004. Discovery of a Candidate Inner Oort Cloud Planetoid. The Astrophysical Journal 617:645.

Cole, S. et al. 2005. The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: Power-spectrum Analysis of the Final Dataset and Cosmological Implications. astro-ph/0501174.

Eisenstein, D.J. et al. 2005. Detection of the Baryon Acoustic Peak in the Large-Scale Correlation Function of SDSS Luminous Red Galaxies. astro-ph/0501171.

Freeman, K. and Bland-Hawthorn, J. 2002. The New Galaxy: Signatures of Its Formation. Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics 40:487-537.

Gomes, R. et al. 2005. Origin of the Cataclysmic Late Heavy Bombardment Period of the Terrestrial Planets. Nature 435:466.

Hamuy, M. et al. 2000. A Search for Environmental Effects on Type IA Supernovae. The Astronomical Journal 120:1479.

Hu, W. and Haiman, Z. 2003. Redshifting Rings of Power. Physical Review D 68.

Kurtz, M.J. et al. 2005. The Bibliometric Properties of Article Readership Information. The Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 56:111.

Lawrence, J.S. et al. 2004. Exceptional Astronomical Seeing Conditions above Dome C in Antarctica. Nature 431:278.

Marcy, G.W. and Butler, R.P. 1999. Extrasolar Planets: Techniques, Results, and the Future. The Origin of Stars and Planetary Systems. Edited by Charles J. Lada and Nikolaos D. Kylafis. Kluwer Academic Publishers, 681.

Mayor, M. and Queloz, D.A. 1995. Jupiter-Mass Companion to a Solar-Type Star. Nature 378:355.

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Perlmutter, S. et al. 1999. Measurements of Omega and Lambda from 42 High-Redshift Supernovae. The Astrophysical Journal 517:565.

Rhoads, J. et al. 2003. Spectroscopic Confirmation of Three Redshift z~5.7 Ly alpha Emitters from the Large-Area Lyman Alpha Survey. The Astronomical Journal 125:1006.

Riess, A. et al. 1998. Observational Evidence from Supernovae for an Accelerating Universe and a Cosmological Constant. The Astronomical Journal 116:1009.

Rubin, V.C. 1979. Rotation Curves of High-Luminosity Spiral Galaxies and the Rotation Curve of our Galaxy. IAU Symposium. In: The Large-scale Characteristics of the Galaxy; Proceedings of the Symposium, College Park, Md., June 12-17, 1978. (A80-19476 06-90) Dordrecht, D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1979. 211, Discussion, 219.

Schmidt, B. et al. 1998. The High-Z Supernova Search: Measuring Cosmic Deceleration and Global Curvature of the Universe Using Type IA Supernovae. The Astrophysical Journal 507:46.

Seo, H-J and Eisenstein, D.J. 2003. Probing Dark Energy with Baryonic Acoustic Oscillations from Future Large Galaxy Redshift Surveys. The Astrophysical Journal 598:720.

Strom, R., Malhotra, R., Kring D. 2005, Science, submitted.

Wittman, D. et al. 2003. Weak-Lensing Discovery and Tomography of a Cluster at z = 0.68. The Astrophysical Journal 597:218.

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ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS

AANM Astronomy and Astrophysics in the New Millennium (NAS, 2001) AASC Astronomy and Astrophysics Survey Committee ACURA Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy ALMA Atacama Large Millimeter Array: large radio telescope under construction in

Chile (NSF) ALPACA Advanced Liquid-mirror Probe for Astrophysics, Cosmology, and Asteroids Altair Facility Adaptive Optics system (Gemini North telescope) AO Adaptive optics AODP Adaptive Optics Development Program (NSF) AOSS AURA Observatory Support Services ATI Advanced Technology and Instrumentation (NSF) bHROS Bench-mounted High Resolution Optical Spectrograph (Gemini-South) CCD Charge Coupled Device CELT California Extremely Large Telescope (UC and CIT collaboration) CFHT Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope CGRO Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory: Second of NASA’s Great Observatories,

launched in 2001 ChaMPlane Chandra Multiwavelength Plane Survey Chandra XRO Chandra X-Ray Observatory: Third of NASA’s Great Observatories, launched

1999 CISS Computer Infrastructure Support South (CTIO) CMB Cosmic microwave background COBE Cosmic Background Explorer (NASA satellite) COS Cosmic Origins Spectrograph: HST instrument COSMOS Cosmic Evolution Survey, HST Treasury Project to survey a 2 square degree

equatorial field with the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) CPAPIR Camera Panoramique Proche InfraRouge: wide-field infrared camera

(Observatoire du Mont Mégantic) DECam Dark Energy Camera DES Dark Energy Survey ERO Extremely Red Objects ESO European Southern Observatory ESSENCE Equation of State = Super Novae trace Cosmic Expansion ET Extraterrestrial planet finder ExAO Extreme Adaptive Optics ExAOC Extreme Adaptive Optics Coronagraph: high-contrast adaptive optics system

and coronagraphic instrument designed to detect planets FLAMEX FLAMINGOS Extragalactic Survey

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FLAMINGOS Florida Multi-Object Imaging Near-Infrared Grism Observational SpectrometerFUSE Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer GIRMOS Goddard Infrared Multi-Object Spectrometer GLAO Ground Layer Adaptive Optics GLAST Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope GMOS Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph GMT Giant Magellan Telescope project (Carnegie Observatories, Harvard University,

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Texas A&M University; Universities of Arizona, Michigan, Texas at Austin)

GNIRS Gemini Near-Infrared Spectrograph GOODS Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (NASA) GSMT Giant Segmented Mirror Telescope Herschel NASA 3-year mission to observe the far-infrared and submillimeter Universe HIRES High Resolution Echelle Spectrograph HRNIRS High Resolution Near-Infrared Spectrograph HST Hubble Space Telescope Hydra Fiber positioner on WIYN 3.5-m telescope for multi-object spectroscopy IGM Intergalactic medium IMACS Inamori Magellan Areal Camera and Spectrograph IMF Initial Mass Function ING Isaac Newton Group IRMOS Infrared Multi-Object Spectrometer ISI Institute for Scientific Information ISM Interstellar Medium JWST James Webb Space Telescope , formerly Next Generation Space Telescope (NGSTKBO Kuiper Belt Objects Kepler NASA Discovery Program mission for detecting terrestrial planets LALA Large Area Lyman Alpha survey LAMOST Large-sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope LNA Laboratorio Nacional Astrophysico LSST Large-aperture Synoptic Survey Telescope MARS Multi-Aperture Red Spectrometer (KPNO) MASS Multi-aperture Scintillation Sensor MAST Multi-mission Archive at Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) MCAO Multi-conjugate Adaptive Optics Michelle Mid-infrared (7–26 micron) imager and spectrometer (Gemini instrument) MIDEX Medium-class Explorer program MIKE Magellan Inamori Kyocera Echelle MIRES Mid-IR High-resolution Echelle Spectrometer: proposed TMT capability

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MMIRS MMT Magellan Infrared Spectrograph MMT Multiple Mirror Telescope MODS-2 Multi-Object Double Spectrograph MOMFOS Multi-object multi-fiber optical spectrograph NCSA National Center for Supercomputing Applications NDWFS NOAO Deep Wide-Field Survey NEWFIRM NOAO Extremely Wide Field Infrared Imager NICI Near-Infrared Coronographic Imager (Gemini South) NICMOS Near-infrared Camera and Multi-object Spectrometer NIO New Initiatives Office (AURA-NOAO) NIRDIF Near-infrared Deployable Integral Field spectrograph NirES Near infra-red echelle spectrograph NIRI Near InfraRed Imager NIRSPEC Spectrometer on Keck II NSA NOAO Science Archive NVO National Virtual Observatory ODI One-Degree Imager (WIYN) OPTIC Univ. of Hawaii camera on WIYN telescope Orion Joint program with NOAO, Raytheon Infrared Operations, the U.S. Naval

Observatory, and NASA Ames Research Center to develop 2048×2048 pixel infrared focal plane arrays using InSb diodes

OSA Optical Society of America OSIRIS OH-Suppressing Infrared Imaging Spectrograph: TSIP-funded instrument for

Keck telescopes (J. Larkin, UCLA, PI) OWL Overwhelmingly Large Telescope: 100-m telescope project (ESO) PAEO Public Affairs and Educational Outreach (NOAO) Pan-STARRS Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System Phoenix NOAO's Infrared High Resolution Spectrograph PROMPT Panchromatic Robotic Optical Monitoring and Polarimetry Telescopes built by

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill on Cerro Tololo QSO Quasi-stellar object QUOTA Quad Orthogonal Transfer Array camera REU Research Experiences for Undergraduates ROSAT Röntgen Satellite SAM SOAR Adaptive Module SARA Southeastern Association for Research in Astronomy SCIDAR Scintillation Detection and Ranging SDSS Sloan Digital Sky Survey SHASSA Southern H-Alpha Sky Survey Atlas SIFS Stress Intensity Factors

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SIM Space Interferometry Mission SIRTF Space Infrared Telescope Facility (NASA), now the Spitzer Space Telescope SMARTS Small and Moderate Aperture Research Telescope System SOAR Southern Astrophysical Research telescope (Brazil, Michigan State University,

NOAO, University of North Carolina) Spartan High resolution IR camera for SOAR telescope (built by Michigan State

University Astronomy and Astrophysics group) SPIE Society of Photo-optical Instrumentation Engineers Spitzer Spitzer Space Telescope (NASA Great Observatories), formerly SIRTF SQIID Simultaneous Quad Infrared Imaging Device STEM Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics STScI Space Telescope Science Institute Super MACHO Super-Massive Compact Halo Objects (microlensing survey) Swift NASA mission to study Gamma-Ray Bursts SWIR Short wavelength infrared (detectors) TMT Thirty-Meter Telescope project: (ACURA, AURA, California Institute of

Technology, University of California) TPF Terrestrial Planet Finder TPF-C Terrestrial Planet Finder Coronograph TSIP Telescope System Instrumentation Program (NSF) UCAC U.S. Naval Observatory CCD Astrograph Catalog UNAT U.S. Naval Observatory astrometry survey UNC University of North Carolina VISTA Visual and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (ESO) WFC3 Wide Field Camera 3 WFMOS Wide-Field Multi-object Spectrograph WFS Wide-Field Survey WHIRC WIYN High-resolution Infrared Camera WHT William Herschel Telescope WISE Wide-field Survey Explorer WIYN 3.5-m telescope on Kitt Peak (University of Wisconsin, Indiana University,

Yale University, NOAO) WMAP Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (NASA Explorer mission) WTTM WIYN Tip/Tilt Module YSO Young Stellar Object

APPENDIX C Partners and Tenants on Kitt Peak

C–1

The benefit of NSF investment in Kitt Peak extends well beyond the scientific programs of visiting observers on KPNO telescopes. NSF funds provide the basis for a stable infrastructure, allowing a diverse group of institutions and consortia to establish observatory facilities that benefit their communities. KPNO’s role ranges from operations partner, as in the case of the WIYN 3.5-m and 0.9-m telescopes, to lead partner in Kitt Peak Support Services and the Kitt Peak Telecommunications Consortium. The following lists the current Kitt Peak tenant facilities and their owners .

National Radio Astronomy Observatory 25-m Telescope: Component of Very Long Baseline Array network

Steward Observatory – University of Arizona

2.3-m Bok Telescope: Wide-field optical imaging, optical and near-IR imaging and spectroscopy 0.9-m Telescope: Spacewatch survey for near-earth asteroids 1.8-m Telescope: Spacewatch survey instrument 12-m Telescope: Millimeter wave spectroscopy and mapping

MDM Observatory University of Michigan ...............1974 – present Dartmouth College ......................1974 – present M.I.T. ..........................................1974 – 1998 Columbia University ...................1998 – present Ohio State University ..................1998 – present Ohio University (Athens) ............2005 – present

2.4-m Hiltner Telescope 1.3-m McGraw-Hill Telescope

RCT Observatory Consortium of Western Kentucky U., South Carolina State U., Planetary Sciences Institute,

Villanova U., and Fayetteville State U.)

1.3-m Telescope: In commissioning for fully robotic operation

Burrell Schmidt Telescope (0.6/0.9-m): Case Western Reserve University

Southeastern Association for Research in Astronomy (SARA) Consortium of Florida Institute of Technology, East Tennessee State, Florida International, U. of

Georgia, Valdosta State U., and Clemson U.) 0.9-m Telescope: Remote operation for optical imaging and spectroscopy

WIYN Telescope Wisconsin, Indiana, Yale, NOAO

3.5-m Telescope: One-degree field for multi-fiber spectroscopy, high quality imaging

WIYN 0.9-m Consortium of Indiana U., U. of Wisconsin Madison, Whitewater, Oshkosh, Stevens Point;

Wesleyan U., U. of Florida, San Francisco State U., Bowling Green State U., Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium

0.9-m Telescope: one-degree field with NOAO Mosaic imager, plus 2Kx2K CCD

APPENDIX C Partners and Tenants on Kitt Peak

C–2

Wisconsin H-Alpha Mapper Project: PI Ron Reynolds, U. WisconsinFully robotic with wide field, extremely narrow-band imaging

Calypso Telescope – Edgar O. Smith1.3-m Telescope for high-resolution imaging

Impact on Partner Astronomy Programs

The letters in Appendix D testify to the fact that consortium astronomers find that their Kitt Peak facilities greatly enhance the scientific productivity of their departments and the educational opportunities for their students. Some examples:

WIYN 3.5-m: Over the first ten years of operations, the three university partners have produced some 170 papers based on WIYN data in refereed astronomical journals. Twenty-seven of their astronomy Ph.D. thesis students have used WIYN data in their projects. Remote observing stations on all three campuses have created involvement for undergraduate majors and those taking survey courses. Two papers in refereed education journals have resulted from developing techniques for student training at WIYN.

WIYN 0.9-m: This telescope has offered a wealth of educational opportunities to its partners. In the last four years, Indiana University has supported six undergraduate research projects and thirteen undergrads with class-oriented observing runs. With remote observing capability, U. of Wisconsin and Indiana U. undergrads participate in data acquisition through their Astronomy 100 level courses. IU has sponsored 24 REU student observers, and both the U. of Wisconsin and NOAO have used the telescope for their REU summer students as well. NOAO makes use of the 0.9-m for incorporating extragalactic nova discoveries into high school curricula through the Teacher Leaders in Research-Based Education (TLRBSE) program.

MDM Observatory: Since 1998, consortium astronomers have published 161 papers based on MDM data in refereed journals. MDM data were used in 37 Ph.D. theses. In addition, the tele-scopes supported 10 other graduate student projects (like Master’s theses) and two undergraduate honors theses. The partners have used MDM observing and data as part of four undergraduate courses per semester since 1998 and three graduate courses per year starting in 1994.

SARA Observatory: Florida International University has produced four refereed papers in 7.5 years, along with numerous conference proceedings, and 2 Master’s theses. The consortium astronomers take pride in their extremely low annual operating costs of $55K. Florida Tech has seen the publication of 13 papers over the last 3 years from SARA data. They are funded to support an REU program of some ten students per year to use the telescope and its data; to date they have hosted over 100 undergraduates with interest in astronomy. They now show the largest undergraduate astronomy enrollment of any Florida institution. They have also attracted $1.3M in grant funding, based on their access to the SARA telescope.

Universit of Arizona Steward Observatory: The Bok 2.3-meter Telescope provides the data for an average of 15 refereed publications per year. Student instrumentalists have been involved over the years in production of instruments for the telescope, including IR cameras and the latest mosaic CCD camera for the prime focus.

APPENDIX C Partners and Tenants on Kitt Peak

C–3

Science Publications, Abstracts, and Graduate Theses Based on Data from NOAO “Tenant” Telescopes on Kitt Peak and Cerro Tololo

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FIGURE C.1 Publications and Abstracts Based on Data from WIYN and SMARTS Telescopes 1996–2005. (NB: Bar labeled “Dissertations” depicts total number of dissertations 1996–2005.)

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FIGURE C.2 Publications Based on Data from the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) Telescopes on Kitt Peak 1995–2004

APPENDIX D Letters from Partners in NOAO Facilities and Owners of Tenant Telescopes

D–1

1. From J. Steiner, President, Board of Directors, Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) Telescope, June 29, 2005

Colina Colina El Pino s/n – La Serena, Chile, Tel 56-51-205323, Fax: 56-51-205368 E-mail: soar@ctio.noao.edu

June 29, 2005

Dr. G. Wayne Van Citters, Director Division of Astronomical Sciences National Science Foundation 4201 Wilson Boulevard Arlington, Virginia 22230, USA

Dear Wayne,

This letter is intended as input to the “Senior Review” process, which we understand is exploring redirection of NSF funding to enable new and planned facilities. I write to you on behalf of the Board of Directors of the new SOAR 4.1m telescope, which is an international partnership between Brazil, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Michigan State University, and NOAO. The two university partners believe their aspirations reflect those of the broad US community, with a need for front-line instrumentation on telescopes with apertures from 4m to 8m and available through direct scientific competition. The US community is large, and that in Brazil is large and growing. To fulfill the scientific aspirations of both communities, access to a mix of telescopes with a mix of instrumentation is vital. The SOAR partners believe, in particular, that well-instrumented 4-meter telescopes will continue to play a critical role for a long time, both independently and also interactively with new facilities.

The capital partners (Brazil, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Michigan State University) believe in the importance of this concept such that they have provided roughly 90% of the combined construction cost for the telescope and for its initial suite of instruments. NOAO obviously shares this perception by their provision of funding and personnel to operate the telescope for the next eighteen years. NOAO’s continuing role as the operator of this new facility is crucial since the capital partners do not have the Chilean infrastructure or personnel to accomplish this task.

The SOAR Telescope fills an important and unique place in the overall set of southern-hemisphere telescopes available to the general US and Brazilian astronomical communities. SOAR has been designed to produce exceedingly high quality images. It provides tip-tilt correction at all foci through its active tertiary mirror, and both the telescope optics and the instruments have been specifically designed to work over the approximately 5 arcmin field of view (FOV) that is determined by the iso-kinetic patch within which tip-tilt correction can remove atmospheric effects. For research projects which depend on sharp images, this gives SOAR a decisive advantage over other 4m-class telescopes. Another hallmark of SOAR is “quick change”, in which multiple instruments are kept in a ready state in anticipation of targets of opportunity or efficient observing, changing observing plans according to cloud cover or Moonrise/set. UNC is constructing an array of six 0.4-meter telescopes that will be controlled robotically, and aimed at very rapid (seconds) follow-up of gamma-ray bursts. Especially interesting events would then be directed to SOAR, which should be on target within ten minutes of discovery by the Swift satellite. This is only one example of a host of opportunities for time-critical observing.

SOAR is coming on-line with an unusually powerful set of modern instruments provided by the consortium partners. SOAR already has in use the new SOAR Optical Imager, built by NOAO, which covers a 5.2 5.2 arcmin2 FOV with a 4K 4K CCD array. Commissioning is also underway for the

APPENDIX D Letters from Partners in NOAO Facilities and Owners of Tenant Telescopes

D–2

Goodman Spectrograph, a new multi-object visible-passband spectrometer with a 5 arcmin FOV which also is capable of observing with high time resolution. This instrument realizes extremely high throughput (up to 85%) by using VPH gratings, which will make SOAR competitive with much larger telescopes. The two remaining first generation instruments will be completed within the next calendar year. One is a 4K 4K infrared camera, which will have two magnifications, one working at the K-band diffraction limit over a 3 arcmin FOV and the other at slightly lower angular resolution over a 5 arcmin FOV. Finally, Brazil is constructing an IFU optical spectrograph as part of the first generation package.

The SOAR consortium is already working on a second generation of instruments. NOAO is well along in the development of an innovative ground-layer adaptive optics system (GLAO) for SOAR, which will serve as a test-bed for such systems on Gemini and GSMT. Brazil has started work on a very high-throughput echelle spectrograph.

While we await delivery of all these instruments, SOAR is utilizing the OSIRIS infrared imager/ spectrograph (on loan to NOAO from Ohio State), and NOAO’s Phoenix infra-red echelle spectrograph.

No telescope, new or old, can be considered separately from the others available to the community of observers, especially in the presence of limited funding. We believe SOAR will play a very important role, for a variety of reasons, in the US and Brazilian systems of moderate-to-large telescopes. First, of course, it has a natural relationship with the 4-meter Blanco telescope atop Cerro Tololo. That telescope’s wide field of view is what helped drive the image quality and narrower FOV design for SOAR. Indeed, the partners have agreed to 1:1 observing time swaps between SOAR and Blanco observing time, which may enable greater versatility and scheduling in the use of both telescopes. SOAR has obvious ties to Gemini as well. Not only do the two telescopes share the infrastructure of operations atop Cerro Pachón, but SOAR’s f-ratio was chosen to, in principle, enable exchange of instrumentation between SOAR and Gemini. At the moment, the exchange is one-way, with Phoenix moving between Gemini and SOAR. But if the Goodman spectrograph proves as successful as we anticipate, it is certainly possible to share that instrument as well, or the IFU spectrograph. Further, the work on GLAO that is underway with NOAO on behalf of SOAR has direct relevance to Gemini’s own long-term plans. As you know, GLAO was a highly-ranked capability that emerged from the Aspen process.

The links between SOAR and future facilities are numerous as well. ALMA is one of the premier US and international endeavors, and will no doubt consume major amounts of optical and infrared observing time on 4-meter and 8-meter telescopes. As noted above, SOAR will provide excellent near-IR imaging and spectroscopic capabilities. Whether the LSST is sited in the north or the south, 4-meter telescopes will be crucial for much of the follow-up work, especially for targets of opportunity, many of which will require the capabilities for which SOAR was designed. There are even links to GSMT, and possibly quite direct ones. For example, a spectrograph for a 30-meter telescope will present huge demands on design and fabrication of key components. The SOAR partnership’s early commitment to innovative design in the form of VPH gratings has led already to a capability to produce the necessary large gratings. “Public-private” partnerships like SOAR are critical to maximizing the significant capital investment such a large telescope will require, as NSF has recognized already.

We understand that the review committee is unlikely to visit Chile and have a close look at the SOAR telescope, its complement of instruments, and its relationship to other existing and planned facilities in the southern hemisphere. We hope our letter and materials supplied by NOAO will convince the Senior Review team that SOAR and 4-meter telescopes generally will continue to play a critical role in the US “system” of telescopes.

Yours sincerely,

Professor João Steiner President, and on behalf of SOAR Telescope Board of Directors

APPENDIX D Letters from Partners in NOAO Facilities and Owners of Tenant Telescopes

D–3

2. From J. Peoples on Behalf of the Dark Energy Survey Consortium

July 22, 2005

Dr. Wayne Van Citters Division of Astronomical Sciences National Science Foundation 4201 Wilson Boulevard Arlington, VA 22230

Dear Wayne,

I am writing to you to bring you up to date on the plans of the Dark Energy Survey (DES), because I believe that our plans are relevant to the Senior Review. We have strengthened our collaboration by expanding it to include the University College London (UCL), Cambridge, Edinburgh, and the University of Portsmouth from the United Kingdom and the Institute of High Energy Physics and the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia from Barcelona, Spain. We have added the University of Michigan as a partner, bringing the number of U.S. universities that have made financial commit-ments to DES to three (Chicago, UIUC and Michigan). In addition, we are discussing membership in DES with several other U.S. universities. We are stronger because our new collaborators include astronomers who made important contributions to 2dF and to SDSS and they will bring their experience to the DES.

Our new partners have strengthened our ability to design, build, and deploy DECam. The addition of UCL has brought the expertise of its Optical Science Laboratory to bear on the design, procurement, and testing of the wide field optical corrector lenses. The University of Michigan team includes two people with extensive experience in the design and construction of instruments for Magellan. We are confident that we will produce a design for a better, less expensive wide-field corrector than the one we presented to the Blanco Instrumentation Review Panel (BIRP) a year ago. Fermilab and LBNL have made excellent progress toward bringing the high resistivity LBNL CCDs to production and Fermilab, UIUC, and Chicago are working together to build CCD testing systems capable of characterizing production quantities of CCDs. In the very near future Fermilab will begin packaging the first CCDs that it received from LBNL. The costs of these efforts are being supported by Fermilab, the University of Chicago, and UIUC.

We plan to deliver DECam and the software to CTIO in January 2009. We plan to carry out our survey between September 2009 and March 2014 using the 30% of the Blanco time that will be allocated to the DES Collaboration in exchange for delivering DECam and the software. That time will be concentrated between September and February of each year when our target region in the south galactic cap is visible at low air mass from CTIO. Our collaboration is already working with CTIO to understand how to bring the seeing delivered with Blanco and DECam up to the excellent potential of the Cerro Tololo site. We are very close to completing a memorandum of understanding among Fermilab, NOAO, NCSA and the Collaboration that will capture the plans of the partnership.

Our primary survey area will cover the full sky area of the South Pole Telescope SZ survey, which lies south of 30 degrees S. We note that Pan STARRS and CFHT cannot readily observe this area from 20 degrees N. In principle, DarkCAM, an optical-near IR imager that a UK group has proposed to build for VISTA, could cover the same area as DECam if it is deployed on VISTA with a high priority. However, it would be an ESO instrument subject to the rules of ESO and the data would not be available to the U.S. astronomical community. By contrast, we and NOAO plan to place the data obtained with DECam and processed with DES pipelines in a public archive. We also plan to make

APPENDIX D Letters from Partners in NOAO Facilities and Owners of Tenant Telescopes

D–4

DECam and the software available to the NOAO community. We are confident that we can achieve these goals because the Collaboration is making steady progress on the data management part of the DES under the leadership of UIUC.

We are very pleased that NOAO chose to prominently feature the DES in the long range plan that they recently submitted to the NSF. We submitted a white paper to the Dark Energy Task Force, which can be found at http://home.fnal.gov/~rocky/DETF/, and we were invited to make a presenta-tion to the Dark Energy Task Force when it met at Fermilab at the end of June. PPARC and ESO have each formed their own dark energy task forces and we suspect that they will examine the potential of DES in relationship to dark energy projects proposed or planned for the UK and ESO. We conclude that our scientific goals must be very important to attract so much attention from so many senior cosmologists and particle physicists.

We would like to point to some of the additional scientific benefits, which were not presented in our whitepaper, that the DES could bring to the US and international astronomical community. We will provide a photometrically accurate and deep multi-band image data set that will allow the users of SOAR, Magellan, and Gemini-South to select a broad range of targets for spectroscopic follow up. AAOmega, an upgrade of the 2dF fiber spectrograph on the AAT, could use the broad sky coverage of the DES to obtain the spectra of nearly a million galaxies out to redshifts somewhat beyond 0.7. Spectrographs on Gemini-South and Magellan will be able to exploit the full depth of the DECam image data, although they can only record the spectra of a few hundred galaxies at the same time. An 8m class telescope able to record the spectra of several thousand galaxies in a single pointing, such as the WFMOS concept for Subaru, would be able to exploit both the depth and breadth of the DECam image data to target large samples of galaxies that lie beyond a redshift of 0.7. For example, DECam could be used by others to expand the northern part of the DES survey area to several thousand square degrees and thereby provide more than a million spectroscopic targets for WFMOS, enabling among other things a precise probe of dark energy through the baryon oscillations in three dimensions.

We continue to use the Announcement of Opportunity issued by NOAO in December 2003 and the strategy that I outlined in my letter to you of November 2, 2004 as the framework for our planning. We are planning to submit a cyberinfrastructure proposal to NSF to fully fund the DES data manage-ment effort at NCSA. Several of the Participating Institutions have submitted proposals to the Depart-ment of Energy, PPARC, the Spanish and Catalonian funding authorities. The value of these proposals together with the commitments made by our university partners will be sufficient to fund DECam; if all the proposals are successful. We recognize that proposals are not commitments. Nevertheless, we believe that we have made significant progress toward our goal of obtaining the commitments needed to build and commission DECam, without appealing to the NSF or NOAO for funding.

Let me close by stating our conviction that DECam will make the Blanco the most powerful O/IR survey facility in the southern hemisphere at the end of this decade and it will benefit a large fraction of the U.S astronomical community.

Best regards,

John Peoples For the Dark Energy Survey Collaboration cc: J. Mould (NOAO), P. Oddone, T. Dunning, DES Management Committee

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