The Next Generation Arecibo Telescope: A preliminary study

D. Anish Roshi; Sean Marshall; Amit Vishwas; Mike Sulzer; P. K. Manoharan; Maxime Devogele; Flaviane Venditti; Allison Smith; Sravani Vaddi; Arun Venkataraman; Phil Perillat; Julie Brisset

arXiv · 2305.07780

The Next Generation Arecibo Telescope: A preliminary study

D. Anish Roshi·Sean Marshall·Amit Vishwas·Mike Sulzer·P. K. Manoharan·Maxime Devogele·Flaviane Venditti·Allison Smith·Sravani Vaddi·Arun Venkataraman·Phil Perillat·Julie Brisset

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Abstract

The Next Generation Arecibo Telescope (NGAT) was a concept presented in a white paper Roshi et al. (2021) developed by members of the Arecibo staff and user community immediately after the collapse of the 305 m legacy telescope. A phased array of small parabolic antennas placed on a tiltable plate-like structure forms the basis of the NGAT concept. The phased array would function both as a transmitter and as a receiver. This envisioned state of the art instrument would offer capabilities for three research fields, viz. radio astronomy, planetary and space & atmospheric sciences. The proposed structure could be a single plate or a set of closely spaced segments, and in either case it would have an equivalent collecting area of a parabolic dish of size 300 m. In this study we investigate the feasibility of realizing the structure. Our analysis shows that, although a single structure ~300 m in size is achievable, a scientifically competitive instrument 130 to 175 m in size can be developed in a more cost effective manner. We then present an antenna configuration consisting of one hundred and two 13 m diameter dishes. The diameter of an equivalent collecting area single dish would be ~130 m, and the size of the structure would be ~146 m. The weight of the structure is estimated to be 4300 tons which would be 53% of the weight of the Green Bank Telescope. We refer to this configuration as NGAT-130. We present the performance of the NGAT-130 and show that it surpasses all other radar and single dish facilities. Finally, we briefly discuss its competitiveness for radio astronomy, planetary and space & atmospheric science applications.

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D. Anish Roshi, Sean Marshall, Amit Vishwas, Mike Sulzer, P. K. Manoharan, Maxime Devogele, Flaviane Venditti, Allison Smith, Sravani Vaddi, Arun Venkataraman, Phil Perillat, Julie Brisset. 2023-05-12. The Next Generation Arecibo Telescope: A preliminary study. https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.07780

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