The Long Latin American Millimeter Array: a new submillimeter facility to observe the Sun

Abstract

The Long Latin American Millimeter Array (LLAMA), is an Argentinian - Brazilian project to build and operate a 12-m radiotelescope that may observe from 45 to 900 GHz and that will have VLBI capabilities. LLAMA will be installed in the Argentinian "Puna de Atacama" region at 4800 m above see level in the Salta Province, at less than 200 km distance from ALMA. The site has excellent sky transmission characteristics for submillimeter astronomy. LLAMA may observein single dish mode, or as VLBI station associated to ALMA at submillimeter wavelengths or to other telescopes at microwaves. Since it is a multipurpose observatory,it has within its objectives,observing the Sun. In VLBI mode it will have a resolution better than 0.001 arcsec at 1 mm wavelength, bringing unprecedented images of the solar atmosphere with a spatial resolution of the order of 1 km. In single dish mode, it will complement spectral observations already carry out by other telescopes. Key aspects to be addressed by solar LLAMA observations are: i) low atmosphere structure, ii) filaments, iii) dynamics of the chromosphere and its magnetic field and iv) flares. The project received full financial support from the Brazilian Agency FAPESP and the Argentinian Ministry of Science for the installation and operation of the antenna near thetown of San Antonio de los Cobres, and should have its first light by beginning 2015, expecting to start early science on middle 2016. We detail in this work the technical features of LLAMA, its state of advance and the science that may be done with its observations.