Hydrogen Intensity and Real-time Analysis eXperiment
The Hydrogen Intensity and Real-time Analysis eXperiment (HIRAX) is an interferometric array of 1024 6-meter (20ft) diameter radio telescopes, operating at 400-800MHz, that will be deployed at the Square Kilometer Array site in the Karoo region of South Africa. The array is designed to measure red-shifted 21-cm hydrogen line emission on large angular scales, in order to map out the baryon acoustic oscillations, and constrain models of dark energy and dark matter.
| Alternative names | HIRAX |
|---|---|
| Location(s) | South Africa |
| Coordinates | 30°43′16″S 21°24′40″E |
| Organization | University of KwaZulu-Natal |
| Wavelength | 37 cm (810 MHz)–75 cm (400 MHz) |
| Built | 2019–2022 |
| Telescope style | parabolic reflector radio telescope |
| Number of telescopes | 1,024 |
| Collecting area | 28,000 m2 (300,000 sq ft) |
Location of Hydrogen Intensity and Real-time Analysis eXperiment | |
The HIRAX collaboration is made up of over a dozen institutions, mainly from South Africa, the United States, and Canada, including the University of KwaZulu-Natal, the Durban University of Technology, the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences, the Botswana International University of Science and Technology, the University of the Western Cape, Rhodes University, the University of Cape Town, McGill University, the University of Toronto, the University of British Columbia, the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Yale University, Caltech, Carnegie Mellon, the University of Wisconsin, the West Virginia University, Oxford University, the Astroparticle and Cosmology Laboratory, the Nelson Mandela University, EPFL, the ETH Zurich, and the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It is funded by the National Research Foundation of South Africa, and by the partner institutions.
The HIRAX array is named in reference to the hyrax, a local mammal, and in parallel to the neighboring meerKAT radio telescope and its eponymous animal.