Future of the GMT

Warrick CouchSwinburne University

Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing

GMT2010: Opening New Frontiers with the Giant Magellan Telescope

“the GMT project is anticipated to bring a quantum jump in the

development of Korean astronomy.”

“The goal of this workshop is to review the current status of the GMT

project and to discuss sciences, instruments and

some of the technical challenges for the GMT.”

Purpose?

SCIENCE – no shortage of ideas and drivers for GMT, some of which will be transformational!

• Disks and planets− debris disks (Song); transitional systems (Lyo)

• First objects in the universe− QSOs as probes (Im); 1st stars relic signature (Ahn); testing

expansion using LSS topology (Rossi)

• Stars and the ISM− stars with planets (Kang); ISM around SNRs/YSOs (Shinn);

SNR shock filaments (Lee)• Galaxies, AGN, Cosmology

− LSS/galaxy evoln (Park); MBH/galaxy evoln (Woo); massive galaxy formation (Yi); Lyα blobs (Yang); N-F cosmol (M-G Lee, An); LRSI (J Lee); glob clusters (Y-W Lee, J-W Lee); cluster gal evoln (Lee, Kim)

Plus 11+ posters in most of these areas!

SCIENCE – important synergies GMT will have with other major telescope facilities

• JWST (Mark Clampin) [launch ≥ 2014]− Will win hands down on broad-band imaging over NIR

and MIR regions− GMT wins in terms of spatial resolution (@DL) and

sensitivity for R>1000 NIR spectroscopy • ALMA (Nagayoshi Ohashi) [2012]

− Molecular gas content and thermal dust emission measurements of importance to ALL science areas/targets of interest to GMT

− Diffraction-limited spatial resolution of GMT well matched to that of ALMA (~20mas in K)

GMT’s southern hemisphere location will also mean strong synergies with LSST and SKA

INSTRUMENTS – the ‘vehicles’ for realizing our scientific aspirations and whose capabilities are

determined accordingly! • GMACS (DePoy)• NIRMOS (Fabricant)• GMTNIRS (Jaffe)• GMTIFS (McGregor)

Hard choices will have to be made – essential the GMT partnership is very clear on its scientific priorities & the

best instrument choices given GMT design & competition

• G-CLEF (R=20,000-150,000 optical spec)• TIGER (Mid-IR imager with coronagraph)• MANIFEST (MANy Instrument FibrE SysTem)

AO

AO

AO

GLAO

TECHNICAL CHALLENGESTwo key areas:

(1)Mirror design and fabrication• M1 (7 x 8.4m) – can we produce off-axis

segments; can we do it fast enough?• M2 (7 x 1.1m ASM’s) – build and integrate

to work in concert with M1 segments?

(2)Adaptive Optics (NGS, LTAO, MCAO, ExAO)• Obvious complexity!• Segment piston error – phase of the incoming

wavefront cannot be measured between M1 segments

CAUSE FOR OPTIMISM

“Ground layer AO with an adaptive ‐secondary is now a demonstrated image sharpening technique with enormouslybroad application.” – M. Hart

The future of GMT – other challenges ahead

(from Pat McCarthy)

Many key challenges & decision points during this period

Main challenges & decisions looming:

• Primary mirror segment production− Need to produce remaining 6 segments in 8 yrs

(avg: 1 per 16 months) to make mid-2019 deadline• Instrument selection

− We cannot have them all; will need to down-select 2-3 as ‘first light’ instruments – which ones???

• Preliminary Design Review− Revised and more accurate construction costing− Outstanding risks yet to be retired?

Main challenges & decisions looming:

• Funding− 35% of funding required for GMT construction

raised; but remaining 65% still to be found− What fraction of total construction budget needs

to be raised before construction can begin?− Cost/danger of sustaining/losing ‘marching army’

• Partners

− GMT partnership 85% subscribed− Intentions of US NSF re GMT involvement?− Implications of US Decadal Survey (ASTRO2010)?

15

Key Members or The Project Team

Matt JohnsProject

Manager

Steven Dolmseth

CFO

George JacobyInstrumentation

Scientist

Antonin BouchezAO Scientist

Michael WardLead Systems

Engineer

Steve ShectmanProject Scientist

Steve GunnelsLead Mechanical

Engineer

Jose FilgueiraLead Controls

Engineer

GMT Adaptive Optics Team

Antonin BouchezGMT AO Scientist

Palomar AO System

Michael HartMMT ASM, GLAO

Phil HinzLBTI PI, MMT AO

Olivier Guyon

Subaru AO Lead

Marcos Van DamAO Consultant

GMT Institutions

HarvardCarnegie

Texas A&M

ANU

KASI U. Arizona

LCO

SAO

U. Texas Austin

AAL

(2008)(2010)

(2010)

???

GMT Workshops

Finally, some thanks are in order:

•Myung Gyoon Lee for chairing the SOC

•Myungshin Im (Chair) and his LOC team: Sang Chul Kim, Young-Soo Kim, Jeong-Eun Lee, Soojong Pak, Jong-Hak Woo

•Seoul National University and KASI for sponsoring the meeting

•Seoul National University for hosting the meeting