The Radio Astronomy Lab (RAL) is an Organized Research Unit (ORU) within the Astronomy Department at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

. It was founded by faculty member Harold Weaver in 1958. Until 2012, RAL maintained a radio astronomy observatory at Hat Creek, near Mt. Lassen. It continues to support on-campus laboratory facilities in Campbell Hall. From 1998 to 2012, the RAL collaborated with the SETI Institute of Mountain View California to design, build and operate the Allen Telescope Array (ATA). RAL has been central to the creation of several radio observatories, including: * Hat Creek Radio Observatory (HCRO), * the Allen Telescope Array (ATA), * the Berkeley-Illinois-Maryland Association (BIMA) array, * the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy (CARMA) array, * the Precision Array for Probing the Epoch of Reionization (PAPER) array

Research Interests

* Millimeter-wavelength

interferometry Interferometry is a technique which uses the '' interference'' of superimposed waves to extract information. Interferometry typically uses electromagnetic waves and is an important investigative technique in the fields of astronomy, fiber o ...

Very Long Baseline Interferometry Very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) is a type of astronomical interferometry used in radio astronomy. In VLBI a signal from an astronomical radio source, such as a quasar, is collected at multiple radio telescopes on Earth or in space. T ...

* Low-frequency radio interferometry targeting the Epoch of Reionization *

Pulsars A pulsar (from ''pulsating radio source'') is a highly magnetized rotating neutron star that emits beams of electromagnetic radiation out of its magnetic poles. This radiation can be observed only when a beam of emission is pointing toward Ea ...

and other radio transients *

Digital signal processing Digital signal processing (DSP) is the use of digital processing, such as by computers or more specialized digital signal processors, to perform a wide variety of signal processing operations. The digital signals processed in this manner ar ...

(DSP) instrumentation

Directors

Carl Heiles Carl Eugene Heiles (born 1939) is an American astrophysicist noted for his contribution to the understanding of diffuse interstellar matter through observational radio astronomy. Biography Heiles was born in Toledo, Ohio. He did his undergraduat ...

(director, 2010-current) * Donald Backer (director, 2008–2010), deceased * Leo Blitz (director, 1996–2008) * William "Jack" Welch (director, 1972–1996), retired * Harold Weaver (director, 1958–1972), retired

Current Faculty

* Leo Blitz * Imke de Pater * Geoff Bower * Aaron Parsons

Senior Scientific Staff

* Dick Plambeck * Melvyn Wright

References

External links