Arecibo Remote Command Center (ARCC)

Credit: NAIC Arecibo Observatory, a facility of the NSF

Members of the Physics department are assembling a diverse group of participants from high school, undergraduate, postdoc, and even teachers who are interested in the cutting edge research taking place at the intersection of radio astronomy and gravitational wave physics.

Our participants work closely with a similar group of students and teachers alike from the University of Texas Brownsville (UTB), where they developed the concept of the ARCC (Arecibo Remote Command Center). Xavier Siemens (faculty member), Jessica Clayton and Larry Price (postdocs), Melissa Anholm (graduate student) and Jean Creighton (planetarium director) are leading ARCC@UWM.

Our 20 participants are currently working on two main research activities, searching for new pulsars using the Arecibo telescope, and analyzing the data collected from these observing sessions. For the observing sessions, we take remote control over the world’s largest radio telescope right from our physics building. To aid us, we work in conjunction with the operators at Arecibo and the University of Texas Brownsville via webcam and Internet correspondence. During our observation sessions, they have proven to be extremely helpful at resolving our issues.

We are also very excited to be implementing more specialized projects, such as developing the data analysis pipeline so the data we receive to analyze is more pertinent to our cause. Also, there are different projects dealing with the development and implementation of gravitational wave detection methods in pulsar timing, and so on.

Meetings take place every Monday night in the Physics building; these meetings usually start with a brief talk by one of our participants or a guest speaker (about a half hour) about relevant and intriguing subjects applicable to the research that is taking place. Such topics are pulsars, stellar evolution, cosmology, gravity, etc. After the talk we discuss what we have learned in a usually heated discussion, we then digress to hear about pertinent news that is happening with the research.

Credit: The Electronic Universe Project

Both the University of Texas Brownsville and the Arecibo Observatory are located in Hispanic communities, which gives our participants an opportunity to interact and share ideas with people of a different ethnic background. Our main faculty member leading this program, Xavier Siemens, is a native Spanish speaker.

The ARCC program at UWM is an exciting opportunity for UWM and its students and teachers to develop a more intimate connection with the Milwaukee community by encouraging the participation of local high school students and increasing public awareness of new frontiers in physics and astronomy. Our enthusiastic attitude about this project will hopefully increase the number of students pursuing Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics careers in southeast Wisconsin.

For more information on ARCC please visit:
http://www.gravity.phys.uwm.edu/arcc/