RIT works on the Tomographic Ionized-carbon Mapping Experiment

Victoria Butler, a New York Space Grant NASA Fellow at RIT (left), is shown with Caltech grad student Yun-Ting (center), and TIME PI Abby Crites (right) covering one input to the detectors in a material called Mylar. This will help prevent stray radio frequency signals from reaching the instrument.

Victoria Butler, a NYSG grant recipient of RIT, is working on the Tomographic Ionized-carbon Mapping Experiment (TIME), which aims to detect carbon emission lines in the very first stars and galaxies.

These signals will help to determine the chemical composition of gas pockets in the distant past, when the very first stars and galaxies were forming. Observing the environment where the first stars are formed will provide clues to what could be fueling their formation, and how they are different from later generations of stars in the universe.

TIME Uses a sensitive type of mm-wavelength detector known as a Transition Edge Sensor (TES) bolometer, which acts as a sophisticated thermometer. These detectors represent a step towards future space missions, as they have small physical size, well-understood and compact readout electronics, and a fast sampling rate. TIME employs a new statistical method called intensity mapping to maximize the signal to noise ratio on emission from numerous very faint sources. TIME will be using a single radio dish antenna to observe these objects, which are believed to be responsible fro re-ionization. These can be stars or galaxies which heat up dust and gas in their surroundings in the far distant past, and trigger additional star formation.

Having such a detector in space without interference from Earth’s atmosphere can enable entirely new kinds of science in the mm and sub-mm, where emission from dust in galaxies tells us the story of star formation over the history of the universe.

TIME is currently being deployed for an engineering run at the ARO 12m antenna at Kitt Peak, AZ. Victoria’s contribution is through the development of software used to control all instrumental components, including the telescope, as well as visualize and analyze incoming data. Victoria is a third year graduate student pursuing her Ph.D. in the Astrophysical Sciences and Technology program at RIT where her advisor is Dr. Mike Zemcov.