Arcminute Microkelvin Imager

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Arcminute Microkelvin Imager
The AMI Large Array, utilizing antennas from the Ryle Telescope. The telescopes have been re-positioned since this photo was taken.
Location Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory, Cambridge (UK)
Wavelength 12-18 GHz
Built 2003-2005
Website AMI website

The Arcminute Microkelvin Imager (AMI) is an interferometer radio telescope designed principally to image secondary anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) at higher angular resolution than the Very Small Array. It consists of two interferometric arrays, the Small Array and the Large Array, sited at the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory in Cambridge (UK), both operating in the frequency range 12-18 GHz. The (short-baseline) Small Array consists of ten 3.7 m parabolic antennas while the long-baseline Large Array is composed of eight 13 m antennas. The two arrays have essentially identical receivers and back-end electronics.

The main goal of the project is to carry out a survey of clusters of galaxies via the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect (the scattering of the CMB off gas in the cluster). AMI will also make very high-resolution observations of the primordial CMB power spectrum.

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