The CCAT-prime Project’s wide-field, six-meter aperture Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope (FYST) is currently under construction at 5600 m (18,400 ft) on Cerro Chajnantor in the Chilean Atacama Desert. CCAT-prime will address a suite of science goals, from Big Bang cosmology to star formation and galaxy evolution over cosmic time. I designed and am leading the development of two cryogenic receivers for FYST: Prime-Cam and Mod-Cam. Prime-Cam, a first-generation science instrument for FYST, will deliver over ten times greater submillimeter mapping speed than current and near-term facilities for unprecedented mm and sub-mm broadband and spectroscopic measurements with kinetic inductance detectors (KIDs). Mod-Cam, a first light and commissioning instrument for FYST, is now being integrated with the first 280 GHz instrument module and KID arrays for first light in 2024. Mod-Cam will be used to commission instrument modules for Prime-Cam, which can house up to seven instrument modules, each targeting unique science goals.
Mod-Cam in testing at Cornell
Working on the Mod-Cam cryostat in the lab at Cornell with graduate students Ben Keller and Lawrence Lin, 2022
Select Publications:
E. M. Vavagiakis, C. J. Duell et al. 2022, “CCAT-prime: Design of the Mod-Cam receiver and 280 GHz MKID instrument module,” Proc. SPIE 12190:1219004, Millimeter, Submillimeter, and Far-Infrared Detectors and Instrumentation for Astronomy XI, arXiv:2208.05468.
C. J. Duell, E. M. Vavagiakis et al. 2020, “CCAT-prime: Designs and Status of the First Light 280 GHz MKID Array and Mod-Cam Receiver,” Proc. SPIE 11453:114531F, Millimeter, Submillimeter, and Far-Infrared Detectors and Instrumentation for Astronomy X, arXiv:2012.10411.
E. M. Vavagiakis et al. 2018, “Prime-Cam: A first-light instrument for the CCAT-prime telescope,” Proc. SPIE 10708:107081U, Millimeter, Submillimeter, and Far-Infrared Detectors and Instrumentation for Astronomy IX, arXiv:1807.00058.
The CCAT-prime Collaboration 2021, “CCAT-prime Collaboration: Science Goals and Forecasts with Prime-Cam on the Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope,” arXiv:2107.10364.
Learn more about CCAT-prime:
NSF awards $1.3M to CCAT-prime telescope project
Cornell University CCAT-prime group in Mike Niemack’s lab, 2017
Header Image Credit: S. Radford
Eve M. Vavagiakis 