MISTRAL: Science Perspectives and Performance Forecasts

Abstract

The MIllimeter Sardinia radio Telescope Receiver based on Array of Lumped elements (MISTRAL) KIDs is a millimeter camera operating at 90GHz that was recently installed on the Sardinia Radio Telescope (SRT) as part of the SRT-HighFreq program, which aims to expand the capabilities of the radio telescope up to the W-band. After technical and scientific commissioning (2023–2024), MISTRAL will be open to proposals from scientists as a facility instrument. MISTRAL provides a wide 4’ field of view, sampled at a resolution of 12” with approximately 400 kinetic inductance detectors. The sky in the W-band is well explored by CMB experiments; however, their resolution is limited to about 1’. Using large single-dish radio telescopes like SRT or the Green Bank Telescope allows to probe angular scales down to 10–12”, allowing scientists to obtain new data and complementary information in multiple scientific cases. In this contribution, we will review observational perspectives and performance forecasts of MISTRAL, based on laboratory measurements of the noise properties, for selected scientific cases such as galactic science and high-resolution measurements of the Sunyaev–Zel’Dovich effect in galaxy clusters and in the cosmic web.