The Very Large Array: Current Challenges -- Future Capabilities Rick Perley* NRAO, Socorro *With major contributions from Claire Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array Chandler, Tony Beasley, Chris Carilli, Expanded Very Large Array Sandy Weinreb, and Tracy Clarke Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope Very Long Baseline Array NRAO Research Facilities Jansky Very Large Array Very Long Baseline Array Green Bank Telescope Atacama Large Millimeter/submm Array NG-VLA -- MPIfA -- 06 Feb 2015 2 Part I The Very Large Array, Today NG-VLA -- MPIfA -- 06 Feb 2015 3 The Very Large Array -- Overview • The Very Large Array is a 27-element, reconfigurable interferometer array, located in west-central New Mexico, USA. (lat = 34.1, long = 107.6). • High elevation (2100 m), desert climate (~20 cm yearly precipitation, 76% sunny), means good observing conditions most of the year. • There are four major configurations, offering a range of over 300 in imaging resolution. VLA, looking NW, in D configuration – e.g. 1.5” to 400” at l=21cm • Designed as an imaging array • Also a good ‘light bucket’ • And a decent surveying instrument. • Recently upgraded. NG-VLA -- MPIfA -- 06 Feb 2015 4 VLA – A Short History • Designed early 1970s, construction began1975, completion in 1980. – Original design had only four frequency bands (21 cm, 6cm, 2cm, 1.3cm). – By today’s standards, receivers were very poor, and narrow bandwidth. • The VLA was absolutely a ‘transformational’ telescope, overwhelming, by orders of magnitude, all other interferometer arrays. – It offered unprecedented sensitivity, frequency coverage, and flexibility. • From 1980 to 2000, better receivers were installed, and new frequency bands established. But the data transport and correlation technology remained in the 1970s. • The ‘VLA Expansion’ (Upgrade) project began in 2001, and was completed in 2012. – Expanded VLA’s capabilities by one -- three orders of magnitude. • The ‘new’ telescope is the ‘Jansky Very Large Array’ (JVLA). NG-VLA -- MPIfA -- 06 Feb 2015 5 Major Capabilities of the Jansky VLA • Nine Frequency Bands Spanning 50 MHz – 50 GHz – Eight cryogenic bands, covering 1 – 50 GHz. Utilizes cassegrain subreflector. – One uncooled, prime-focus band, covering 50 – 450 MHz. • Up to 8 GHz instantaneous bandwidth – Two independent dual-polarization frequency pairs, each of up to 4 GHz BW. – All digital design to maximize instrumental stability and repeatability. • Full polarization correlator with 8 GHz instantaneous BW – Provides 64 independent ‘sub-correlators’, and 16384 spectral channels. – Many specialized operations modes (burst, pulsar binning, phased arrays …) • ~5 mJy/beam (1-s, 1-Hr) continuum sensitivity at most bands. • ~2 mJy/beam (1-s, 1-Hr, 1-km/sec) line sensitivity at most bands. • Resolution Range exceeding factor of 300 at any one band. – e.g. 1.5 to 450 arcseconds at 1400 MHz, – 0.045 to 15 arcseconds at 50 GHz. NG-VLA -- MPIfA -- 06 Feb 2015 6 A Reconfigurable Array • Maximum flexibility with minimum number of antennas • Moving 220-ton antennas requires a big transporter, like the one seen on the right, and • A double railway track as seen below. NG-VLA -- MPIfA -- 06 Feb 2015 7 Full Frequency Coverage with Outstanding Performance • There are eight cassegrain focus Feed systems, and one prime focus system. Heaters 25-meter Band l s X (1 Hr) I parabaloid C (GHz) (cm) mJy/beam reflector .05 -- .08 600 -- 375 ??? L S .24 -- .45 125 -- 67 P 100 (?) 1-2 30 -- 15 L 7 2-4 15 – 7.5 S 4 4-8 7.5 – 3.2 C 2.5 Eight feeds around the cassegrain 8-12 3.2 – 2.5 X 2 secondary focus 12-18 2.5 – 1.7 Ku 2 ring. 18-26.5 1.7 – 1.1 K 3 26.5-40 1.1 -- .75 Ka 4 40-50 .75 -- .6 Q 8 8 … J-VLA: Everything but the antennas is new • Old antennas, old configurations • New data transmission system • New receivers • New electronics • New correlator • New software (online, monitor and control, user tools for proposal submission and observation prep, scheduling, data reduction) • New operations model • New observing techniques • New imaging problems (wide fractional bandwidth) NG-VLA -- MPIfA -- 06 Feb 2015 9 Dynamic scheduling for the VLA • For the old VLA, Barry Clark made up the schedule a month in advance. • Often meant that high frequency observing done in poor weather, and low frequency observing in ideal weather. • Nowadays, we have full dynamic scheduling. This includes consideration of: – Scheduling Block (SB) length (can be arbitrary, from ~0.5hr to many hours; projects comprise multiple SBs, possibly multiple configurations) – Scientific priority (provided by TAC) – Frequency bands requested – Phase stability (from a 300m baseline, 11.7 GHz atmospheric phase interferometer) – Wind speed – (For the future: measured opacity, weather forecasts) NG-VLA -- MPIfA -- 06 Feb 2015 10