The proposed Cornell Caltech Atacama
Telescope (CCAT) is a 25 m diameter telescope
for submillimeter astronomy. Scheduled for completion
early in the next decade, CCAT will be the largest
and most sensitive facility of its class as well as
the highest altitude astronomical facility on Earth.
CCAT will combine high sensitivity, a wide field of
view, and a broad wavelength range, to provide an
unprecedented capability for deep, large area
multi-color submillimeter surveys that will
complement narrow field, high resolution studies
with ALMA.
To accommodate large format bolometer cameras,
the telescope will have a 20 arcmin field of
view. An active surface adjustment system using
closed loop positioning of the primary mirror
panels will maintain a surface accuracy around 10
m rms to provide high aperture efficiency for
short wavelength observations. The candidate site
for CCAT, at 5600 m near the summit of Cerro
Chajnantor in the Atacama region of northern
Chile, enjoys superb conditions that permit
observations at wavelengths as short as 200 m.
Instrumentation under consideration includes both
short (650 m - 200 m) and long (2 mm - 750m)
wavelength bolometer cameras, direct detection
spectrometers, and heterodyne receiver arrays.
The CCAT consortium includes Cornell University, the California
Institute for Technology with the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, the University of Colorado, a Canadian
consortium including the Universities of Waterloo and
British Columbia, and the UK represented by the
Astronomy Technology Centre.