CCAT-prime: a novel telescope for sub-millimeter astronomy

Abstract

The CCAT-prime telescope is a 6-meter aperture, crossed-Dragone telescope, designed for millimeter and sub-millimeter wavelength observations. It will be located at an altitude of 5600 meters, just below the summit of Cerro Chajnantor in the high Atacama region of Chile. The telescope's unobscured optics deliver a field of view of almost 8 degrees over a large, flat focal plane, enabling it to accommodate current and future instrumentation fielding >100k diffraction-limited beams for wavelengths less than a millimeter. The mount is a novel design with the aluminum-tiled mirrors nested inside the telescope structure. The elevation housing has an integrated shutter that can enclose the mirrors, protecting them from inclement weather. The telescope is designed to co-host multiple instruments over its nominal 15 year lifetime. It will be operated remotely, requiring minimum maintenance and on-site activities due to the harsh working conditions on the mountain. The design utilizes nickel-iron alloy (Invar) and carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) materials in the mirror support structure, achieving a relatively temperature-insensitive mount. We discuss requirements, specifications, critical design elements, and the expected performance of the CCAT-prime telescope. The telescope is being built by CCAT Observatory, Inc., a corporation formed by an international partnership of universities. More information about CCAT and the CCAT-prime telescope can be found at www.ccatobservatory.org.

Constraining the properties of gaseous halos via cross-correlations of upcoming galaxy surveys and thermal Sunyaev-Zel’dovich maps

“…High-frequency data from e.g. CCAT-prime [51] could be useful in mitigating these effects. Given current uncertainties in CIB modeling, we defer a careful consideration of this issue to future work.…”

The Design of the CCAT-prime Epoch of Reionization Spectrometer Instrument

“…EoR-Spec will be a spectrometer instrument module in CCAT-prime's Prime-Cam receiver, optimized for intensity mapping the redshifted [CII] line between 210 and 420 GHz. CCATprime is a 6 m aperture telescope being constructed at 5600 m on Cerro Chajnantor in northern Chile [10]. With its exceptionally dry site, CCAT-prime is designed to take advantage of the extremely low water vapor in the millimeter and sub-millimeter bands [8].…”

Constraining the evolution of [C ii] intensity through the end stages of reionization

“…(vi) The Cerro Chajnantor Atacama Telescope (CCAT)prime experiment (Parshley et al 2018) with the Prime-Cam instrument (Vavagiakis et al 2018) and P-Spec imaging spectrometer, plans to probe the late stages of reionization using [CII] line emission over z ∼ 5 − 8. The parameters adopted for a CCAT-p-like configuration are based on the discussions in the document, https://www.ccatobservatory.org/docs/pdfs/Draft CCATp.prospectus.170809.pdf.…”

“…There are several planned experiments that aim to place constraints on the integrated intensity of [CII] over the epoch of reionization, including (i) the Cerro Chajnantor Atacama Telescope (CCAT-prime; Parshley et al 2018) 1 which plans to trace [CII] over z ∼ 5 − 8, probing the late stages of reionization, (ii) the Tomographic Intensity Mapping Experiment (TIME; e.g., Crites et al 2014Crites et al , 2017 and (iii) the CarbON CII line in post-rEionization and ReionizaTiOn (CONCERTO; Serra et al 2016;Lagache 2018) experiment 2 which plans to observe the evolution of CII over z ∼ 4.5 − 8.5. Above z ∼ 4, the [CII] line redshifts into the millimetre wavelengths, where the Atacama Large Millimetre Array (ALMA) facility can make observations in the single dish mode; the ALMA bands 7 and 8 enable [CII] emission observations from z ∼ 2.8 − 5.…”