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Currently under construction in the Andean Altiplano, Northern Chile, the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) is the most ambitious astronomy facility under construction. ALMA is a radio interferometer composed of 54 antennas of 12 m diameter, and twelve 7 m antennas with about 6600 square meters of total collecting area. Initially covering the most interesting spectral wavelength ranges from 3 to 0.3 mm, ALMA will be a revolutionary telescope aimed to unveil the details of star and planet formation and to provide astronomy with the first exhaustive view of the dark and youngest objects of the Universe. This book describes the enormous capabilities of ALMA, the state of the project, and most notably the scientific prospects with such a unique facility. The book includes comprehensive reviews and recent results on most hot topics of modern Astronomy (the formation and evolution of galaxies, the physics and chemistry of the interstellar medium, and the processes of star and planet formation) with prospects to the revolutionary results to be obtained with ALMA. These topics, discussed with special emphasis on millimeter and sub-millimeter astronomy, are presented by some of the most world-wide reputed scientists in their fields.
E-Book Content
Rafael Bachiller • José Cernicharo Editors
Astrophysics and Space Science Science with the Atacama Large Millimeter Array: A New Era for Astrophysics Proceedings of the Conference held in Madrid (Spain), 13–17 November 2006
Reprinted from Astrophysics and Space Science Volume 313, Nos. 1–3, 2008
Rafael Bachiller Observatorio Astronomico Nacional Alfonso XII, 3 E-28014 Madrid Spain
José Cernicharo CSIC Madrid Inst. Estructura de la Materia Serrano, 199 28006 Madrid Spain
Background image: Artists’ impression of ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array), Chajnantor plateau, Northern Chile. Credit: Euro-
pean Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO), produced for ALMA. The photos of the Editors. The 5 astronomical images: Images of dusty circumstellar disks: Up: The large dust disk surrounding Beta Pictoris observed with a coronograph at 0.8 micron with the University of Hawaii 2.2 m telescope on Mauna Kea. Paul Kalas, UC Berkeley.
Middle: Epsilon Eridani observed at 850 µm wavelength with the Submillimetre Common-User Bolometer Array at the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope. Greaves et al. 1998, The Astrophysical Journal 506, L133. Down: The disk around HD141569 observed with the Hubble Space Telescope. Mouillet et al. 2001, Astronomy & Astrophysics 372, L61. The spiral galaxy M51. Up: Radio image of M51 showing the location of Carbon Monoxide gas observed by Schinenerer, Weiss, Scoville, and Aalto. (Credit: Institute for Millimeter-wave Radioastronomy, IRAM, Owens Valley Radio Observatory OVRO, and National Radio Astronomy Observatory, NRAO.) Down: M51 as seen with the Hubble Space Telescope. (Credit: Space Telescope Science Institute.)
Astronomy Subjects Classification (2007): SCP22006 Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology; SCP22014 Astronomy; SCP22022 Astrophysics Library of Congress Control Number: 2007943079
ISBN: 978-1-4020-6934-5
e-ISBN: 978-1-4020-6935-2
Printed on acid-free paper. © 2008 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC., 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of tr