Extragalactic HI Surveys at Arecibo: the Future

Abstract

Starting in the 1970s, the Arecibo 305m telescope has made seminal contributions in the field of extragalactic spectroscopy. With the Gregorian upgrade completed in the late 1990s, the telescope acquired a field of view. Population of that field of view with a seven-feed array at L-band (ALFA) increased by nearly one order of magnitude its survey speed. As a result, much of the extragalactic astronomy time of the telescope is now allocated to survey projects, which are briefly discussed. The next technical development stage for the 305m telescope is foreseen as that of a 40 beam system that would take advantage of phased array technology: AO40. This would further speed up the survey performance of the telescope. It is shown how the figure of merit for survey speed of AO40 would be comparable with that of SKA-precursor facilities, planned for operation in the next decade. A number of scientifically desirable new surveys that would become possible with AO40 are briefly discussed.