Search

This white paper is submitted to the Astronomy and Astrophysics 2010 Decadal Survey (Astro2010)1 Committee on the State of the Profession to emphasize the potential of the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) to contribute to the training of instrumentalists and observers, and to related technology developments. This potential goes beyond the primary mission of SOFIA, which is to carry out unique, high priority astronomical research. SOFIA is a Boeing 747SP aircraft with a 2.5 meter telescope. It will enable astronomical observations anywhere, any time, and at most wavelengths between 0.3 microns and 1.6 mm not accessible from ground-based observatories. These attributes, accruing from the mobility and flight altitude of SOFIA, guarantee a wealth of scientific return. Its instrument teams (nine in the first generation) and guest investigators will do suborbital astronomy in a shirt-sleeve environment. The project will invest $10M per year in science instrument development over a lifetime of 20 years. This, frequent flight opportunities, and operation that enables rapid changes of science instruments and hands-on in-flight access to the instruments, assure a unique and extensive potential - both for training young instrumentalists and for encouraging and deploying nascent technologies. Novel instruments covering optical, infrared, and submillimeter bands can be developed for and tested on SOFIA by their developers (including apprentices) for their own observations and for those of guest observers, to validate technologies and maximize observational effectiveness., Comment: 10 pages, no figures, White Paper for Astro 2010 Survey Committee on State of the Profession

The vertical scales of turbulence at the Mount Wilson Observatory are inferred from data from the University of California at Berkeley Infrared Spatial Interferometer (ISI), by modeling path length fluctuations observed in the interferometric paths to celestial objects and those in instrumental ground-based paths. The correlations between the stellar and ground-based path length fluctuations and the temporal statistics of those fluctuations are modeled on various timescales to constrain the vertical scales. A Kolmogorov-Taylor turbulence model with a finite outer scale was used to simulate ISI data. The simulation also included the white instrumental noise of the interferometer, aperture-filtering effects, and the data analysis algorithms. The simulations suggest that the path delay fluctuations observed in the 1992-1993 ISI data are largely consistent with being generated by refractivity fluctuations at two characteristic vertical scales: one extending to a height of 45 m above the ground, with a wind speed of about 1 m/ s, and another at a much higher altitude, with a wind speed of about 10 m/ s. The height of the lower layer is of the order of the dimensions of trees and other structures near the interferometer, which suggests that these objects, including elements of the interferometer, may play a role in generating the lower layer of turbulence. The modeling indicates that the high- attitude component contributes primarily to short-period (less than 10 s) fluctuations, while the lower component dominates the long-period (up to a few minutes) fluctuations. The lower component turbulent height, along with outer scales of the order of 10 m, suggest that the baseline dependence of long-term interferometric, atmospheric fluctuations should weaken for baselines greater than a few tens of meters. Simulations further show that there is the potential for improving the seeing or astrometric accuracy by about 30%-50% on average, if the path length fluctuations in the lower component are directly calibrated. Statistical and systematic effects induce an error of about 15 m in the estimate of the lower component turbulent altitude.

We report the first observations of H15 alpha (169.4114 microns) and H10 alpha (52.5349 microns) in MWC 349 from the KAO. We obtain a 3 sigma upper limit of 2 x 10(exp -19) W/sq cm for H15 alpha and a flux of 3.6 +/- 1.3 x 10(exp -19) W/sq for H10 alpha. These fluxes are consistent with an appreciable excess due to laser amplification down to quantum numbers n approx. equals 10.

The 158 micro m (CII) line has been mapped in the galaxies Centaurus A, M83, NGC 6946, and NGC 891. The emission exists over very large scales, peaking in the nuclei and extending beyond the spiral arms and molecular disks. While most of the (CII) emission from the nuclei and spiral arms originates in photodissociated gas, the diffuse atomic gas can account for much of the (CII) emission in the extended regions.

The heating and thermal equilibrium of photoionized gas is reviewed. Photon-heating mechanisms (UV photoionization heating, grain photoelectric heating, and X-ray heating) either fail to provide the required heating rates or else require that the ionization state of the gas is very high. Specific application to the Galactic center observations show that the total heating power required to maintain the gas at the derived temperatures, using the observed emission measure in the bar and the temperature distribution derived from the radio recombination lines, is about 7 x 10 exp 6 solar luminosities, comparable to the bolometric luminosity of the central source as measured by the FIR flux from grains. Thus, the cooling emission from this hot gas, if LTE-derived temperatures are correct, would supply a major fraction of the bolometric and ionizing luminosity inferred from the ionized gas in the central 1 pc cavity and the dust and neutral gas in the surrounding torus.

Large scale maps of the face of spiral galaxies M51, M83, and NGC 6946 in the 158 micron (C II) fine structure line. The maps are obtained from the Far-infrared Imaging Fabry-Perot Interferometer (FIFI) during its first series of flights on board the Kuiper Airborne Observatory. The (C II) line emission is ubiquitous and easily traced over the mapped regions of each of the galaxies. The (C II) maps are compared with those obtained with similar sized beams in the CO line. The data available from these maps is interpreted.

The combination of low atmospheric water vapor, high altitude, and low temperatures makes the South Pole and other high interior parts of the Antarctic continent particularly suitable locations for certain types of infrared or millimeter-wave astronomy. Information available on the atmospheric column density of water at the South Pole and at Vostok, the Soviet station, are surveyed. To illustrate the usefulness of these areas for infrared astronomy, important astronomical lines in the wavelength region 50 to 200 microns are listed. The atmospheric transmission in this wavelength region is also calculated and plotted for 0.1 mm and 0.3 mm of precipitable water along the line of sight through the atmosphere. Such low values of precipitable water occur frequently enough to allow practical astronomical observations from the ground and, for certain cases, this can provide advantages over observations from high-flying aircraft or satellites.

The far-infrared rotational spectrum of H2(O-16) has been studied in the spectral range 25-112/cm to measure the foreign-gas collision-broadened linewidths. Measurements of 17 lines broadened by nitrogen and 21 lines broadened by oxygen are reported. The measurements were made at 297 K. From these data, the widths due to air broadening are obtained. The experimental results are compared with recent theoretical calculations and with the case of a constant linewidth, equal to the average experimental width. There is some correlation between the relative experimental linewidths and the theoretical predictions. However, the simple assumption of a constant value for the collision-broadened linewidths gives a better representation for the case of N2- and O2-broadened linewidths than do present detailed theoretical calculations.