Heterodyne instrumentation at the CSO

The Caltech Submillimeter observatory (CSO) is one of the World's premier submillimeter telescopes. It consists of a 10.4 meter diameter Leighton radio dish situated in compact dome near the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii. The telescope has been operating under a contract from the National Science Foundation on a regular basis since 1988. For the first time heterodyne Superconducting-Insulating-Superconducting (SIS) receivers with a 1 GHz intermediate frequency (IF) are available for the entire 180 - 950 GHz Submillimeter band. To enhance the extra-galactic capabilities of the observatory and to allow interferometry with the upcoming Submillimeter Array (SMA) project, we are actively working towards upgrading all heterodyne instruments with a 3 GHz IF bandwidth. Concurrent to the planned IF upgrade, we are constructing a dual polarization beam switching 345 GHz extra-galactic receiver, also with a 3 GHz IF bandwidth. Ideally, this instrument will give the CSO a factor of 8 improvement in integration time over the current 345 GHz receiver, and will be ideally suited for the study of highly red-shifted extra-galactic sources.

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