The key science drivers for the Atacama Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (AtLAST)

TL;DR

The paper discusses the scientific motivations and requirements for AtLAST, a proposed 50m single-dish submillimeter telescope designed to rapidly map large sky areas with high sensitivity, addressing key open questions in astrophysics.

Contribution

It identifies the key science drivers for AtLAST and outlines the technical requirements needed to enable groundbreaking submillimeter observations.

Findings

AtLAST will significantly increase sensitivity and mapping speed.

The telescope will have a 50m dish with a 1-2 degree field of view.

It aims to be a sustainable, upgradeable, multipurpose observatory.

Abstract

Sub-mm and mm wavelengths provide a unique view of the Universe, from the gas and dust that fills and surrounds galaxies to the chromosphere of our own Sun. Current single-dish facilities have presented a tantalising view of the brightest (sub-)mm sources, and interferometers have provided the exquisite resolution necessary to analyse the details in small fields, but there are still many open questions that cannot be answered with current facilities: Where are all the baryons? How do structures interact with their environments? What does the time-varying (sub-)mm sky look like? In order to make major advances on these questions and others, what is needed now is a facility capable of rapidly mapping the sky spatially, spectrally, and temporally, which can only be done by a high throughput, single-dish observatory. An extensive design study for this new facility is currently being undertaken. In this paper, we focus on the key science drivers and the requirements they place on the observatory. As a 50m single dish telescope with a 1-2{\deg} field of view, the strength of the Atacama Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (AtLAST) is in science where a large field of view, highly multiplexed instrumentation and sensitivity to faint large-scale structure is important. AtLAST aims to be a sustainable, upgradeable, multipurpose facility that will deliver orders of magnitude increases in sensitivity and mapping speeds over current and planned telescopes.