Enhancing Radio Astronomy: The FAST Core Array Proposal

The proposed FAST Core Array aims to enhance the capabilities of the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) by integrating 24 secondary 40-meter antennas within a 5 km radius of the main facility. This extension is designed to significantly improve sensitivity and angular resolution, achieving 4.3" at a frequency of 1.4 GHz. The FAST Core Array is expected to surpass the performance of existing radio telescope arrays, including the Square Kilometre Array Phase 1 and the next-generation Very Large Array.

Key features of the FAST Core Array include advanced backend devices for real-time signal processing and a phased array feed receiver, which will enhance survey efficiency. The broad frequency coverage and large field of view are crucial for studying transient cosmic phenomena, such as fast radio bursts and gravitational wave events. Additionally, the array will facilitate surveys of neutral hydrogen galaxies, monitor pulsars, and investigate exoplanetary systems.

The development of the FAST Core Array is positioned to strengthen China's role in the global radio astronomy community, with a wide range of potential scientific applications spanning from cosmology to exoplanet science. The technical specifications and expected scientific prospects of the array have been detailed in the paper titled "The FAST Core Array" by Peng Jiang et al., available on arXiv at arXiv:2408.12826.