Future Science Prospects for AMI
ArXiv 1208.1966 (2012)
Authors:
Keith Grainge, Paul Alexander, Richard Battye, Mark Birkinshaw, Andrew Blain, Malcolm Bremer, Sarah Bridle, Michael Brown, Richard Davis, Clive Dickinson, Alastair Edge, George Efstathiou, Robert Fender, Martin Hardcastle, Jennifer Hatchell, Michael Hobson, Matthew Jarvis, Benjamin Maughan, Ian McHardy, Matthew Middleton, Anthony Lasenby, Richard Saunders, Giorgio Savini, Anna Scaife, Graham Smith, Mark Thompson, Glenn White, Kris Zarb-Adami, James Allison, Jane Buckle, Alberto Castro-Tirado, Maria Chernyakova, Roger Deane, Farhan Feroz, Ricardo Genova Santos, David Green, Diana Hannikainen, Ian Heywood, Natasha Hurley-Walker, Ruediger Kneissl, Karri Koljonen, Shrinivas Kulkarni, Sera Markoff, Carrie MacTavish, Michael McCollough, Simone Migliari, Jon M Miller, James Miller-Jones, Malak Olamaie, Zsolt Paragi, Timothy Pearson, Guy Pooley, Katja Pottschmidt, Rafael Rebolo, John Richer, Julia Riley, Jerome Rodriguez, Carmen Rodriguez-Gonzalvez, Anthony Rushton, Petri Savolainen, Paul Scott, Timothy Shimwell, Marco Tavani, John Tomsick, Valeriu Tudose, Kurt van der Heyden, Alexander van der Horst, Angelo Varlotta, Elizabeth Waldram, Joern Wilms, Andrzej Zdziarski, Jonathan Zwart, Yvette Perrott, Clare Rumsey, Michel Schammel
Abstract:
The Arcminute Microkelvin Imager (AMI) is a telescope specifically designed
for high sensitivity measurements of low-surface-brightness features at
cm-wavelength and has unique, important capabilities. It consists of two
interferometer arrays operating over 13.5-18 GHz that image structures on
scales of 0.5-10 arcmin with very low systematics. The Small Array (AMI-SA; ten
3.7-m antennas) couples very well to Sunyaev-Zel'dovich features from galaxy
clusters and to many Galactic features. The Large Array (AMI-LA; eight 13-m
antennas) has a collecting area ten times that of the AMI-SA and longer
baselines, crucially allowing the removal of the effects of confusing radio
point sources from regions of low surface-brightness, extended emission.
Moreover AMI provides fast, deep object surveying and allows monitoring of
large numbers of objects. In this White Paper we review the new science - both
Galactic and extragalactic - already achieved with AMI and outline the
prospects for much more.