Physical Society Colloquium

LOFAR: Astronomy at the Extreme Low End of the Electromagnetic Spectrum

Jason W. T. Hessels

ASTRON

The Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR) is a major new radio interferometric telescope constructed in the Netherlands and other European countries. Utilizing a novel phased-array design, LOFAR covers the largely unexplored low-frequency spectral range from 10-240MHz (wavelengths of 2-30m). LOFAR is the first in a new generation of radio telescopes that use massive computational power to enable and greatly extend their basic capabilities. For example, the LOFAR telescope has no moving parts and is pointed to look at one or multiple places on the sky by digitally combining the signals of thousands of dipole antennas. With its dense core of thousands of antennas and long interferometric baselines, LOFAR will achieve unparalleled sensitivity and spatial resolution in the low-frequency radio regime. I will present the LOFAR telescope, and give an overview of its six key science projects. I will also present the first scientific results obtained from observations of pulsars.