ngVLA Community Studies Program

Description of the Program

As part of the process of building towards a final concept for the ngVLA, NRAO launched the ngVLA Community Studies program, allowing members of the scientific and engineering communities to become major contributors to this effort.  The initial call requested investigations on a number of scientific objectives and technical challenges that play major roles in driving the telescope design (i.e., see list of (first round) suggested topics), where community input was expected to be most constructive.  

 This first call yielded a total of 26 approved scientific and technical studies. 

The results of these studies were presented at the June 2017 ngVLA science meeting, which yielded a community agreed upon baseline concept that is documented in ngVLA Memo #17.

Given the success of our first round of ngVLA Community Studies, a second round was initiated aimed at tackling some of the most pressing questions unveiled by the initial studies. The primary objective for the second round of community studies is to further develop the Key Science Goals outlined in Memo #19. Studies and simulations were asked to focus on addressing these key science goals and on better quantifying the expected performance of the array provide additional supporting technical requirements.  

The second call yielded a total of 12 approved scientific studies.  

Supporting materials for the ngVLA Community Studies, such as notional receiver and array configuration files, can be found on the ngVLA Tools page.  

All ngVLA Community Studies are expected to:

(i) Demonstrate the major scientific/technical advancement being advocated and put it in context for the broader astronomical community.

(ii) State clearly the impact on design choices.

(iii) Ultimately produce a publication in a peer-refereed journal, or at minimum in the ngVLA memo series.

All accepted Community Studies efforts from this second round are expected to write up their findings as part of a peer-refereed journal article or ngVLA memo, and present their progress/final results at the "Astronomy Frontiers in the next Decade and Beyond" Science Conference June 26-29, 2018 in Portland, OR.  Consequently, NRAO is financially supporting each study at modest level to offset travel expenses to present results at the June Science Meeting, as well as for page charges from publications expected to result from the study.  As with the first round of studies, we are additionally supporting a number of these at a much more significant level.  

 

Connect with NRAO

The NSF National Radio Astronomy Observatory and NSF Green Bank Observatory are facilities of the U.S. National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.

Founded in 1956, the NSF NRAO provides state-of-the-art radio telescope facilities for use by the international scientific community. NSF NRAO telescopes are open to all astronomers regardless of institutional or national affiliation. Observing time on NSF NRAO telescopes is available on a competitive basis to qualified scientists after evaluation of research proposals on the basis of scientific merit, the capability of the instruments to do the work, and the availability of the telescope during the requested time. NSF NRAO also provides both formal and informal programs in education and public outreach for teachers, students, the general public, and the media.

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