CCAT-prime Collaboration: Science Goals and Forecasts with Prime-Cam on the Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope

TL;DR

Prime-Cam on the Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope will enable groundbreaking submillimeter observations, advancing our understanding of cosmology, galaxy formation, and star formation with unprecedented speed and sensitivity.

Contribution

This paper provides the first detailed overview of Prime-Cam's science goals, capabilities, and survey strategies for the FYST, highlighting its novel high-speed, broadband, and spectroscopic features.

Findings

Prime-Cam will have over ten times the mapping speed of current facilities.

It will enable high-redshift cosmology and galaxy formation studies.

The instrument will facilitate detailed star formation observations in the Milky Way.

Abstract

We present a detailed overview of the science goals and predictions for the Prime-Cam direct detection camera/spectrometer being constructed by the CCAT-prime collaboration for dedicated use on the Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope (FYST). The FYST is a wide-field, 6-m aperture submillimeter telescope being built (first light in mid-2024) by an international consortium of institutions led by Cornell University and sited at more than 5600 meters on Cerro Chajnantor in northern Chile. Prime-Cam is one of two instruments planned for FYST and will provide unprecedented spectroscopic and broadband measurement capabilities to address important astrophysical questions ranging from Big Bang cosmology through reionization and the formation of the first galaxies to star formation within our own Milky Way galaxy. Prime-Cam on the FYST will have a mapping speed that is over ten times greater than existing and near-term facilities for high-redshift science and broadband polarimetric imaging at frequencies above 300 GHz. We describe details of the science program enabled by this system and our preliminary survey strategies.