A 21 cm window to the universe: introducing the BINGO collaboration

The BINGO (Baryon Acoustic Oscillations from Integrated Neutral Gas Observations) collaboration is glad to announce the publication of the 7 core papers of the collaboration at Astronomy & Astrophysics on August 3rd, 2022. The BINGO project is fully funded, and these papers represent a project milestone, highlighting BINGO science goals and current configuration. 

BINGO is a 40 m dish transit radio telescope currently under construction in the countryside of the state of Paraiba, Brazil. Amilcar Queiroz, one of the project leads at University Federal de Campina Grande (UFCG), highlights the relevance of the project: “The BINGO radio telescope is a cornerstone for the scientific and technological development of the state of Paraiba. The local population is very enthusiastic about the project. We have also been carrying many outreach activities in schools and squares of small towns. It is being stimulating to us to see how the young generation in Paraiba is willing to engage in the project and other technological developments”.

Filipe Abdalla, a BINGO lead, working at University College London, says: “I am very proud, as a Brazilian working abroad, that such a project is being done in my homeland, which will build human capacity to allow many to engage in other large projects in the radio astronomy community”. Bin Wang, a BINGO lead, at YangZhou and Shangai Jiao Tong universities, emphasizes that BINGO project benefits from a broaden international collaboration: “BINGO is a unique radio telescope led by Brazilian scientists. Such a collaboration grows scientific capacity, potentializes scientific research in the dark energy area, and advances radio astronomy techniques”.

The main goal of the BINGO telescope is to detect the 21cm neutral hydrogen signal to study cosmology and astrophysics in the radio band, exploring this new window of observation of our cosmos. The first light of BINGO is scheduled for the first semester of 2023. Elcio Abdalla, general coordinator of the project, comments: “BINGO measurements of the redshifted 21 cm line can potentially lead to baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) detection in the radio band. BAO is considered one of the strongest probes to investigate the properties of Dark Energy. Additionally, due to its mode of operation, BINGO is naturally suited to detect Fast Radio Bursts, an intriguing cosmic phenomenon, as well as other radio transients. We expect to contribute to the detection and investigation of a large number of these events”.

It celebrates the construction of a new, world-class, radio telescope in Latin America since the sad end of the Arecibo telescope operations. Carlos A. Wuensche, vice-coordinator of BINGO and responsible for the instrument construction states that “BINGO is the largest telescope ever built in Brazil, with most of its subsystems designed and built in Brazil. Building the telescope has required a technological expertise and integration of various areas within the Brazilian academy and industry. Finishing and integrating the subsystems with little delay, during the pandemics, was a challenge in itself”.

The BINGO leadership team is composed by scientists from the following institutions: University of São Paulo (USP, Brazil), the National Institute for Space Research (INPE, Brazil) and Federal University of Campina Grande (UFCG, Brazil), Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU, China), Yang Zhou University (YZU, China) and University College London (UK). The international collaboration also includes other scientists from Brazil, United Kingdom, China, France, Italy, Germany, Spain and South Africa. 

BINGO main funding partners are FAPESP (São Paulo State Foundation for Research Support), Paraiba government and the Brazilian Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation NNFC (National Natural Science Foundation of China) and Yang Zhou University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University, from China.

More information about the collaboration can be found at the BINGO portal:

https://bingotelescope.org/releases/3-aug-2022/

The link for the papers can be found at A&A website:

https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/abs/2022/08/contents/contents.html

BINGO Collaboration

bingotelescope@usp.br