Makoto Inoue / 井上允

Greenland Telescope (GLT)

In 2011, we were awarded an ALMA prototype antenna made by North America, for our sub millimeter VLBI. In parallel, we have been surveying the best site for imaging the SMBH shadow. We identified the site in Greenland, and now telescope has a new name, Greenland Telescope (GLT). The site is 3,200 m high with some research facilities supported by NSF, USA (see picture below and its URL). The site provides longer baselines with ALMA in Chile and SMA in Hawaii, and also good medium length baselines with telescopes in USA and Europe for M87, which is one of the most promising targets to observe the shadow image. Because of the altitude and low temperature, the GLT is expected to be operational at THz region in single dish observations.

We had a kick off meeting to deploy the GLT in Greenland: Taiwan sub-millimeter VLBI Telescope Workshop, in November 2011, when the nickname of GLT was not so popular yet. We had hot discussion both on black hole science and engineering issues establish a high precision telescope in such a cold environment. You may see those in the workshop Homepage.