UDP Cosmic Dust Laboratory

Dust particles are the dominant source of opacity at (sub)millimeter wavelengths and are therefore the main observable of instruments like ALMA. Dust opacity is a function of chemical composition, temperature, and structure. All these parameters vary as a function of physical conditions in the interstellar and circumstellar media. While extensive databases of dust opacities already exist, the vast majority of existing measurements have been produced at IR wavelengths, at room temperature and/or with very small particle sizes (of a few microns in diameter). In contrast, even though protoplanetary disks contain dust grains with a very wide range of temperatures and sizes, ALMA is mostly sensitive to very cold (20 – 100 K) and large dust grain (~0.1- 1 mm in size), a parameter space that remains poorly explored.

To tackle this problem and help the astronomical community to make the most of the revolutionary ALMA observations, we have established the UDP Cosmic Dust Laboratory, the first one of its kind in Chile and Latin-America, thanks to a CONICYT-QUIMAL grant (PI = Prof. L. Cieza).  In our Laboratory, we can measure dust opacities in the right conditions (in vacuum and at very low temperatures, down to 4 K), in the relevant wavelength regime (IR to 1 mm in the current instrument configuration) and with the appropriate grain size distributions (micron-sized to mm-sized particles).

The UDP Cosmic Dust Laboratory is a dedicated 70 m2 laboratory with office space, a large sample preparation room, in addition to the small room housing a top-of-the-line spectrometer. The main instrument of the laboratory is BRUKER Vertex 80V spectrometer that operates at wavelengths between 1 micron and 1 mm in vacuum and down to liquid helium temperatures (4 K). The work at the UDP Cosmic Dust Laboratory is interdisciplinary in nature and currently includes the participation of Prof. Roberto Lavin (experimental physicists), Prof. Lucas Cieza (astronomer), and PhD student  Grace Batalla (geologist).