Heterodyne Array Development at the University of Arizona

Over the past four years, SORAL and its colaborators have been developing two SIS heterodyne array systems for astronomical telescopes: the PoleStar 4 beam array for the 850 GHz atmospheric window, and DesertStar 7 beam array for the 350 GHz atmospheric window. PoleStar was delivered to the AST/RO telescope at the South Pole during the austral summer of 2000, and is now in normal operation. Desert Star is undergoing lab testing now and will be installed on the Heinrich Hertz Telescope later this year. We will present an overview of the system design, techniques for local oscilator multiplexing, bias control, optics, cryogenics, and results from system characterization and commissioning. Techniques used in the construction of these arrays can be extended to higher frequencies and large array formats. PoleStar: An 810 GHz Array Receiver for AST/RO A 4-pixel array receiver constructed to operate in the astrophysically important 810 GHz atmospheric window was assembled and tested at the Steward Observatory Radio Astronomy Lab (SORAL) and installed on the Antarctic Submillimeter Telescope and Remote Observatory located at the South Pole (AST/RO) at the South Pole (Groppi et al. 2000). The cold, dry conditions at the South Pole, coupled with its relatively high altitude (~10,500 ft.) make it an excellent location for observations at submillimeter wavelengths. AST/RO has a 1.7 m aperture and was designed to take advantage of these conditions (Stark et al 2001). Figure 1 is a photograph of the receiver front-end as it appeared in the lab before deployment. Figure 1: PoleStar in the lab during frontend testing. All system electronics fit into a single transportable equipment rack. A He-Ne laser is mounted on the optics plate here for optics