Technology
| Article Index |
|---|
| Technology |
| The ALMA antennas |
| The ALMA Front End |
| Back End and Correlator |
| All Pages |
The ALMA antennas
The antenna is the heart of ALMA. These are the highest quality radio telescopes ever built, and they must maintain their precise shape under the strains of remote high altitude operation on the Llano de Chajnantor site. The site offers the exceptionally dry and clear sky required to operate at mm/submm wavelengths, but also experiences large diurnal temperature variations and strong midday winds. The ALMA antennas will be more than capable of operating in this extreme environment, enabling ALMA to fully exploit this superb site. Read further about the Antennas and Transporters.
Detector technology
Receiving systems on ALMA will cover the entirety of the electromagnetic spectrum observable from the Earth’s surface from 0.3 mm to 9.6mm in wavelength. At the heart of the receiving system are sensitive superconducting tunnel junction mixers, operating at just 4 Kelvin (269ºC below zero). Together, the mixer systems on the ALMA antennas will be the most extensive superconducting electronic receiving system in the world. Read more about The ALMA Front End.
Signal processing capacity
ALMA forms images by continuously combining signals from each antenna with those from every other antenna. There are 1,225 such antenna pairs. From each antenna a bandwidth of 16 GHz will be received from the astronomical object being observed. The electronics will digitize and numerically process these data at a rate of over 16,000 million-million (1.6 x 1016) operations per second. Astronomical images are constructed from the processed data. Read more about The ALMA Back End and Correlator.
