4.2. AMiBA

AMiBA (Lo 2001), shown in Fig. 16, is a dedicated MBR interferometer designed for rapid surveys of arcminute-scale microwave background structures, including the SZ effects. This ASIAA/NTU project is now replacing the prototype that has been sited on Mauna Loa for the past year with the operational facility.

Figure 16. Artist's impression of the Array for Microwave Background Anisotropy (AMiBA). The two dish sizes are approximately 0.3 and 1.2 metres in diameter respectively.

AMiBA is planned to have 19 antennas of two sizes (diameters 0.3 and 1.2 metres) and will offer a baseline range 380 < b < 1875 at 95 GHz. The wide bandwidth at which it operated (~ 20 GHz), and dual-polarization operation, will result in a sensitivity of about 1.3mJy in one hour, and a range of surveys of different depths is planned to measure the distributions of SZ effects in clusters at a range of redshifts. A simulated AMiBA map, including two SZ detections, is shown in Fig. 17.

Figure 17. A simulated AMiBA field from the planned deep survey, showing two SZ detections.