Presentation #535.02 in the session “New Views of Galaxy Formation and Evolution”.
The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) has engaged the broad scientific and technical communities in the design of a next-generation Very Large Array (ngVLA), a large-scale research infrastructure project under development for the National Science Foundation Astronomical Sciences Division (NSF-AST) through a cooperative agreement with Associated Universities, Inc. The ngVLA is envisaged as an interferometric array with ten times greater sensitivity and spatial resolution than the current VLA and ALMA, operating in the frequency range of 1.2 - 116 GHz.
The ngVLA will be a transformative, multi-disciplinary scientific instrument opening a new window on the Universe through ultra-sensitive imaging of thermal line and continuum emission down to milliarcsecond-scale resolution, as well as unprecedented broad-band continuum polarimetric imaging of non-thermal processes. The ngVLA will be optimized for observations in the spectral region between the superb performance of ALMA at sub-mm wavelengths, and the future Phase I Square Kilometer Array (SKA-1) at decimeter and longer wavelengths, resulting in a transformational instrument for the entire scientific community.
In August 2019, the ngVLA project completed the public release of the ngVLA Reference Design. The Reference Design is a low-technical-risk, costed concept that supports the key science goals for the facility, and forms the technical and cost basis of the ngVLA Astro2020 Decadal Survey proposal.
In this poster we provide a technical update, noting changes from the Reference Design towards the Conceptual Design baseline. We highlight the evolving concepts for major system elements such as the antenna, receiving electronics, and the central signal processor. We also provide updated sensitivity and performance estimates for the array.