1. The Submillimeter Array 1 David J. Wilner dwilner@cfa.harvard.edu

2. What is the Submillimeter Array? The SMA is an exploratory instrument comprised of eight moveable 6 meter antennas designed for high spatial and spectral resolution imaging through semi-transparent submillimeter atmospheric windows. The SMA is a collaborative project of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, part of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics (Taiwan)

3. 3 Why “Submillimeter” ? best part of electromagnetic spectrum to study “cool” material

4. 4 Why a Submillimeter “Array” ? resolution ~ /D: 1 arcsec at = 1 mm requires D = 200 meters! interferometry: combine signals from separate small telescopes to synthesize a large one

5. 5 Submillimeter Array Science a unique and versatile telescope –Solar System bodies, protoplanetary disks, star forming regions, evolved star envelopes, black holes, nearby galaxies, ultraluminous galaxies at cosmological distances, … in very high demand –more than 200 observing proposals per year –fewer than 1 out of 4 of submm requests accommodated –archive: data in public domain after 15 months more than 200 papers in refereed journals –more than 1000 authors and co-authors –PhDs: Harvard, SAO predocs, Hawaii, Taiwan, …

6. dynamic queue scheduling according to weather primary observations from Mauna Kea, remote from Hilo base facility, Cambridge, Taipei SMAOC web portal for both operations and PIs to track projects from proposal through observations with up-to-minute information 6 Submillimeter Array Operations

7. 7 SMA Science Examples Debris on Jupiter SgrA* Black Hole Planet Forming Disks Distant Galaxies

8. 8 Cometary Debris on Jupiter comet SL-9 impact in 1994 deposited material in Jovian atmosphere, fading over time SMA images distribution of molecules, e.g. HCN fate: downward transport at poles dominates photo-chemical evolution SMA HCN J=3-2 Moreno et al., 2010

9. images of dust and gas around ~1 Myr old stars at scale of our Solar System initial conditions for planet building significant fraction show inner holes: evidence for giant planets in formation Planet Forming Disks NASA/JPL/T. Pyle (SSC) Andrews et al. 2010 Hughes et al. 2009 Brown et al. 2007, 2009

10. Early Universe Starbursts half of luminous cosmic energy density comes from dust enshrouded sources SMA observations locate dusty sources to <0.2 arcsec, enable multi- assessment population of galaxies with extreme star formation when Universe was <20% of current age, invisible to Hubble Space Telescope 10 Younger et al. 2007, 2009, 2010

11. Closest Look at a Black Hole SgrA* at Galactic Center, 4 million times mass of Sun, largest black hole on the sky Earth-size mm telescope! Hawaii-California-Arizona (SMA/JCMT-CARMA-SMT) –37  arcsec scale emission size of event horizon –hot spot in accretion flow? higher sensitivity planned to access time variable structure 11 Doelman et al. 2008

12. SMA Outreach 12