Scientific Goals and Missions - ASTE Project

Purpose

ASTE project provides several capabilities for ALMA science and development with a 10-meter radio telescope located at Pampa La Bola in the Atacama Desert in Northern Chile, aiming to explore the Universe invisible to human from the southern hemisphere at the submillimeter wavelengths.

Missions

The missions of this project are to deliver observing data sets to the scientific community by operating the ASTE telescope including the activities for developments of new technology under the collaboration with relevant institutes and organizations, leading the design of new scientific requirements for the coming decade and more in Astronomical observations at the millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths.

Primary Scientific Goals

The primary scientific goals of this project are:

1. to measure the redshift distribution and luminosity function of dust-enshrouded hyper luminous star-burst galaxies (HyLIRG) in the early universe (beyond the redshift of 3) using a novel submillimeter wave ultra-wideband spectrograph in order to unveil the role of HyLIRG in the cosmic star-formation history; and
2. to provide wide-field mapping of molecular clouds in the nearby star-forming regions by observing several [CI] and CO emission lines in the unexplored frequency range corresponding to the ALMA Band 8 and 10, aiming to establish the validity of these molecular lines as the useful tool to derive the physical and chemical environments. This will contribute to obtain robust measurements of the molecular gas mass even in extra-galaxies observed with ALMA, offering insights to the understanding of the physical process governing the star-formation-rate density in the cosmic history.

Target Date

End of March 2028