India TMT Digest: Thirty Meter Telescope
India TMT Digest: Thirty Meter Telescope
India TMT Digest: Thirty Meter Telescope
ITCC
India TMT Coordination Center (ITCC) Indian Institute of Astrophysics II Block, Koramangala, Bangalore 560034 India
The Background
Prior to Galileo Galilei, our view of the universe was largely constrained to the unaided vision of the eyes. A mere 3-inch telescope used by him in 1608 brought a revolution in astronomy. This simple but novel instrument revealed the vastness and grandeur of the night sky which hitherto was unknown to humanity. Large telescopes (up to 10 m diameter) built in the last 20 years have led to many fascinating and intriguing discoveries in astronomy. With the advancement in technology, a tremendous progress has been made in understanding several aspects of the observable Universe. Some of the notable findings in the last few decades include the discovery of planets around other stars, irrefutable evidence for accelerating universe, indirect clues of supermassive black holes in the center of many galaxies, powerful gamma ray bursts originating from the distant corners of the Universe, existence of dark matter and dark energy, detailed identification and monitoring of asteroids and comets that could pose a serious threat to the inhabitants of the Earth and many more. Further advancement in astronomy would require giant telescopes to probe the Universe at a deeper scale, to unravel its formation and evolutionary history and discover the existence and possibility of life elsewhere in the Universe. The cutting edge optical and IR astronomy is expected to move from the present 8-10 m class telescopes (e.g., Keck: 10 m, Subaru and VLT: 8 m) to the ground-based Giant Segmented Mirror Telescopes (GSMTs) of diameters over 20 m, signifying the next major leap in this area of scientific pursuit. Building such mega facilities requires innovative ideas, new technologies and immense funds. These formidable requirements have forged collaborations between institutes and countries across the world, to pool financial and technical resources to build and operate the most ambitious observatories in the near future. Most notably, three international consortia, namely, the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) with an aperture of 24.5 m diameter, the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) with an aperture of 30 m diameter, and the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) with an aperture of 39 m diameter, have been formed to build and operate the next generation mega optical and near-infrared telescopes. All three projects are scheduled for commissioning by the end of this decade. India has already developed a world class observing facility at radio wavelengths the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) and will soon launch a dedicated astronomy satellite the ASTROSAT, with multi-wavelength capabilities in the X-ray and UV domain. However, we lack a similar powerful facility in the optical and infrared domain. Presently, we have three 2 m class optical-IR telescopes and a 3.6 m telescope to be commissioned sometime in 2013. Though Indian astronomers have been using many of the existing 8-10m class international facilities, such usage has so far been limited to either individual efforts or - less frequently - to institute-level collaborations.
India TMT
Indias participation in international projects was envisaged in the Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Vision Document 2004 sponsored by the Indian Academy of Sciences and the Astronomical Society of India. In this backdrop, when the three international consortia for mega telescope projects (GMT, TMT and E-ELT) approached astronomy institutes in the country for Indias participation, the astronomy community after due diligence and thorough deliberations, arrived at the conclusion that TMT presents the best options for India and participation in the project at a 10% level would be optimal.
FIGURE 1: THE ARTISTIC RENDITION OF THE TMT OBSERVATORY PLANNED FOR CONSTRUCTION AT MAUNA KEA IN HAWAII
The Department of Science and Technology (DST) reviewed the proposal and approved observer status for India in the TMT project in June 2010. Since then, India has been participating in all the policy decisions and development activities of the project. The Aryabhatta Research Institute for Observational Sciences (ARIES), Nainital; the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), Bangalore; and the Inter-University Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), Pune; are the three main institutes spearheading the efforts. The activities of TMT-India will be coordinated by the India TMT Coordination Center (ITCC) set up by the Department of Science and Technology. The IIA is the nodal agency of ITCC. India TMT will be jointly funded by the Department of Science and Technology and Department of Atomic Energy, Government of India.
FIGURE 2: TMT OBSERVATORY DESIGN SHOWING THE TELESCOPE STRUCTURE, OPTICS AND HOST OF SCIENCE INSTRUMENTS
TMT will be located just below the summit of Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii, at an elevation of 4,050 m.
AO is a technology driven solution to compensate the degrading effect of the atmosphere. The fundamental goal of any AO system is to improve the telescope performance from seeing limited, meaning the image quality is limited by the atmosphere above the telescope, toward the diffraction limited, meaning images as sharp as those that could be obtained with the same diameter telescope located in space. Even in the seeing limited mode, the large light gathering capacity of the TMT will yield an order of magnitude improvement over existing observatories. The Narrow Field Infrared Adaptive Optics System (NFIRAOS) is the TMTs adaptive optics system for infrared instruments. The unprecedented light gathering capability and angular resolution of TMT will shed new light on many unsolved and challenging problems in astronomy and astrophysics. Most importantly, several unanticipated and fundamental discoveries made by TMT will help shape the course of future research in astronomy. In short, TMT will be a leading new generation telescope posited to serve the world-wide astronomy community as a flagship research facility.
Science Impact
TMT has a collecting area of 650 m2 and will observe through the atmospheric windows from Ultraviolet to mid-infrared wavelengths. The large collecting area makes TMT 81 times more sensitive (sensitivity is a measure of the minimum signal that a telescope can distinguish above the random background noise) than the current largest ground based (10 m class) telescopes. The AO capability enables TMT to resolve objects by a factor of 3 better than the 10 m class telescopes and 12 times better than the Hubble Space Telescope. Telescope HST JWST Keck TMT Aperture (meters)
2.4 6.5 10 30
The 20 arcmin diameter field of view facilitates the deployment of wide-field imagers and multiobject spectrographs. These capabilities will enable ground breaking advances in a wide range of scientific areas starting from our own Solar system to the most distant parts of the Universe. Some of the high impact science cases are discussed in the following.
Birth of the First Stars and the Formation of the Earliest Galaxies
Based on our current understanding, the Universe began 13.7 billion years ago in a rapidly expanding burst of matter and energy. We see the imprints of that event today as cosmic microwave background. As the Universe continued to expand and cool, matter began to collapse under gravity, eventually forming its first stars. The TMT will be able to look farther back in time than is currently possible, to search for first star clusters and primordial galaxies.
FIGURE 8: SIMULATED SPECTRA SHOWING THE S/N THAT IS ACHIEVED FOR A STAR OF V=19.5 MAG, WITH TELESCOPES OF DIFFERENT SIZES AT A RESOLUTION OF R=25,000 AND EXPOSURE TIME OF 60 MIN, FOR A METAL POOR STAR IN THE GALACTIC HALO (Figure: Gajendra Pandey)
FIGURE 10: A RECENT DISCOVERY OF AN EXO-PLANET FOUND WITHIN THE HABITABLE ZONE OF KEPLER-22 SYSTEM
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Science Synergies
Synergy with the current and upcoming ground/space based observing facilities of India is an important aspect of the TMT. The TIFR GMRT Sky Survey (TGSS) is an ongoing sky survey with the GMRT. The newly identified sources in TGSS require follow up in shorter wavelengths and a good fraction of them will be beyond the reach of current 8-10 m class telescopes. TMTs sky coverage is similar to that of GMRT, providing imaging and spectroscopic data at shorter wavelength and higher spatial resolution than currently possible.
India is also participating in the upcoming worlds largest and most sensitive radio telescope project, called the Square Kilometer Array (SKA). More than 50% of the SKA identified sources may require follow up with TMT. India will be soon launching its astronomy dedicated satellite, ASTROSAT. TMT will be able to do the sensitive spectroscopy required to classify and characterize the newly discovered transients by ASTROSAT.
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FIGURE 14: PROJECT TIMELINE SHOWING DDP, PRE-CONSTRUCTION, CONSTRUCTION AND EARLY PHASE OPERATIONS
The most critical path in the schedule starts with the on-site work (civil construction activities, the erection of the enclosure and the telescope structure at the summit) and concludes with the assembly, integration and verification (AIV) of all remaining systems at the observatory. The TMT project is an international partnership involving India, the USA, Canada, Japan and China.
Indias Role
Participation in the TMT will provide Indian astronomers an opportunity to carry out frontline research in astronomy. Another major reason to participate in this scientific endeavour is to bring home some of the much needed high-end technology in this field through international collaboration. The primary mirror of the TMT has an aperture diameter of 30 m, consisting of 492 individual 1.44 m hexagonal segments. The main challenge is to maintain the final wavefront at the focal plane as though formed by a single monolithic 30 m diameter mirror. This involves developing a host of new technologies in mechanics, electronics,optics and control software. India chose, with the aim of acquiring key technologies, to provide a portion of the 492 segments and the complete segment support system consisting of ~ 1,500 actuators and ~ 3,000 edge sensors. A major part of the observatory control software would also be a part of Indias contribution.
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FIGURE 15: OPTICAL LAYOUT OF THE TELESCOPE SHOWING DETAILS OF INDIAS CONTRIBUTION - THE PRIMARY MIRROR CONTROL SYSTEM
Edge Sensors:
Edge sensors are an important component of the TMT. They measure the relative displacement, tip and tilt of the segments. Each segmented mirror will have 12 edge sensors and in total 3,234 sensors for entire M1. The work to produce 25 prototype sensors has already been initiated by TMT-India at General Optics Asia Limited (GOAL) Puducherry.
FIGURE 16: CALIBRATION AND TESTING OF THE EDGE SENSORS AT ITCC LABORATORY
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Actuators:
In order to achieve very high spatial resolution as well as sensitivity, all the 492 hexagonal mirror segments of the TMT must be precisely positioned with respect to each other to form a 30-meter hyperboloid primary mirror. The M1 control system (M1CS) performs this task, with the help of actuators that correct for the segments tip-tilt and piston errors measured by edge sensors. Each mirror segment will be driven by three actuators and altogether 1,476 actuators are required to keep all the segments aligned. 10 such prototype actuators are under manufacture at Avasarala Technologies Limited (ATL), Bangalore.
Segment Polishing:
goals of India-TMT. As a first step towards this, India has to demonstrate segment polishing capability either using Stress Mirror Polishing (SMP) technique or CNC approach.
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Each mirror segment will be mounted on a Segment Support Assembly (SSA). Each SSA is tuned for a specific type of segment, so there will be 82 types of SSAs. Each mirror segment requires an SSA that has several sub-components that are to be manufactured separately and integrated.
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A laboratory to facilitate TMT related research and development activities has been set up by the India TMT Coordination Center (ITCC) within the campus of IIA, Bangalore. Assembly, testing and calibration of various sub-systems being developed in India will be carried out in this laboratory. The TMT observatory control software consists of a set of software components that control the operations of the telescope, the mirrors, the telescope dome or enclosure, and the various instruments. India is responsible for the Observatory Software (OSW), Data Management System (DMS) Image and Object Catalogs (CAT).
The TMT observatory control software consists of a set of software components that control the operations of the telescope, the mirrors, the telescope dome or enclosure, and the various instruments. India is responsible for the Observatory Software (OSW).
Event Services:
Event Service is a software-only product that provides a highperformance publish and subscribe messaging infrastructure between the different software components. Efforts to identify the software and an implementation scheme are underway.
The Executive Director will have oversight responsibility during the construction phase with respect to the TMT Project Office. He will directly report to the Governing Body. The Project Mangers is the overall in-charge of the Project Office and oversees the design, development and construction of the TMT project. He will have oversight responsibility with respect to the performance of the partners obligations during the construction. Once the project construction is completed the Observatory Director will be in-charge of the day-to-day operations of the Observatory.
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Broader Impacts
TMT is a unique opportunity for advancing science and technology. Cutting edge science and technology development is required to build and operate this next generation observatory. As a result of participation in the TMT project, several key technologies related to astronomy are being transferred to the country. A prolonged association with the project would help scientists and engineers in the country to master these technologies and eventually develop our own 8-10 m class telescope facilities on Indian soil. This is imperative to expand research in astronomy to a wider pool of talent existing at university level. Besides astronomy, TMT will contribute to engineering and technology, international relations and workforce development. This international partnership will enable opportunities for scientific, technical and community collaborations.
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Quick Look
Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) is an international project involving India, the USA, Canada, Japan and China. TMT will be built on the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii, at an elevation of 4,050 m. Construction phase will begin in 2014 with completion in early next decade. The primary mirror is designed to be 30 m across consisting of 492 hexagonal segments, each 1.44 m in size. The TMT design offers 10 times more light gathering power than the largest existing ground based facilities. The AO capability enables TMT to resolve objects by a factor of 3 better than the current 10 m class telescopes and 12 times better than the Hubble Space Telescope.
These capabilities will enable ground breaking advances in a wide range of scientific areas starting from our own solar system to the most distant parts of the Universe. The project cost is approximately $ 1.4 billion. Indias contribution is about 10% of the total cost and is jointly funded by Department of Science & Technology and Department of Atomic Energy. Much of Indias contributions will be through providing vital components such as actuators, edge sensors and segment support assemblies. A major part of the observatory control software will also be part of Indias contribution.
This international partnership will enable opportunities for scientific, technical and
community collaborations.
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