Project Title

South Pole Telescope Operations and Data Products

Summary

Event Number:
A-379-S
NSF / OPP 2332483

Program Director:
Dr. Marion Dierickx

ASC POC/Implementer:
Paul Sullivan / Sheryl Seagraves / Leah Street

Principal Investigator(s)

Dr. Thomas M Crawford
tcrawfor@kicp.uchicago.edu
University of Chicago
Astronomy and Astrophysics, Enrico Fermi Institute
Chicago, Illinois

Project Web Site:
https://pole.uchicago.edu/

Location

Supporting Stations: South Pole Station
Research Locations: South Pole (Dark Sector)

Description

This project requests support for maintenance and operations of the 10-meter South Pole Telescope (SPT) equipped with the current third-generation instrument, SPT-3G. The proposed operations plan includes survey observations with SPT-3G to obtain ultra-deep, three-band millimeter-wave measurements of a 1,500-square-degree field. The SPT-3G survey region was chosen to overlap with the Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization (BICEP; aka BICEP/Keck) survey; the coordinated observations are being used for a joint analysis to search for gravitational waves from the early universe. In addition, the SPT-3G data will place new constraints on the cosmic neutrino density, possibly the first-ever detection of the sum of the neutrino masses, constrain the properties of dark energy, and discover new classes of astronomical objects (including clusters of galaxies, protoclusters, dusty star forming galaxies, and transient sources).

The proposed operations also support SPT's critical role in the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), a global array of telescopes to image the event horizon of nearby supermassive black holes. The EHT made worldwide headlines with its first detections of the event horizon shadow from the black holes at the center of the Messier 87 (M87) and Milky Way (or Sagittarius A* [Sgr A*]) galaxies.

Field Season Overview

Critical tasking for 2025-26 will include winter-over turnover and training, repairs to the telescope's azimuth cable wrap, and reinstallation of the South Pole Telescope Summertime Line Intensity Mapper (SPT-SLIM) instrument followed by several weeks of on-sky observations. The telescope will be transitioned back to SPT-3G observations in December. Additional annual activities include service, maintenance, and upgrades to the telescope components and computer systems and cryogenic maintenance of the telescope and optics cryostats. Radio frequency monitoring will continue in collaboration with other Dark Sector projects and the Antarctic Support Contract (ASC). ASC support will be provided for snow maintenance around the SPT and Dark Sector Laboratory facilities, cargo and compressed gas deliveries, machine shop resupply, and general station and information technology support. Shared workspace and remote access will also be provided to SPT grantees as needed while they are in transit through McMurdo.

Deploying Team Members