Yebes 40 m radio telescope and the broad band NANOCOSMOS receivers at 7 mm and 3 mm for line surveys

TL;DR

The Yebes 40m radio telescope has been upgraded with new broad band receivers at 7 mm and 3 mm, significantly enhancing its spectral survey capabilities and sensitivity for molecular line observations.

Contribution

This paper introduces new broadband receivers installed on the Yebes 40m telescope, expanding its frequency coverage and demonstrating improved spectral observation performance.

Findings

High sensitivity achieved in the Q band spectrum of IRC+10216.

Comparable results to IRAM 30m in the W band despite smaller sensitivity.

Enhanced spectral survey capabilities for astrophysical media.

Abstract

Yebes 40\,m radio telescope is the main and largest observing instrument at Yebes Observatory and it is devoted to Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) and single dish observations since 2010. It has been covering frequency bands between 2\,GHz and 90\,GHz in discontinuous and narrow windows in most of the cases, to match the current needs of the European VLBI Network (EVN) and the Global Millimeter VLBI Array (GMVA). Nanocosmos project, a European Union funded synergy grant, opened the possibility to increase the instantaneous frequency coverage to observe many molecular transitions with single tunnings in single dish mode. This reduces the observing time and maximises the output from the telescope. We present the technical specifications of the recently installed 31.5-50 GHz (Q band) and 72-90.5 GHz (W band) receivers along with the main characteristics of the telescope at these frequency ranges. We have observed IRC+10216, CRL 2688 and CRL 618, which harbour a rich molecular chemistry, to demonstrate the capabilities of the new instrumentation for spectral observations in single dish mode. The results show the high sensitivity of the telescope in the Q band. The spectrum of IRC+10126 offers a signal to noise ratio never seen before for this source in this band. On the other hand, the spectrum normalised by the continuum flux towards CRL\,618 in the W band demonstrates that the 40~m radio telescope produces comparable results to those from the IRAM 30~m radio telescope, although with a smaller sensitivity. The new receivers fulfil one of the main goals of Nanocosmos and open the possibility to study the spectrum of different astrophysical media with unprecedented sensitivity.