NenuFAR (New Extension in Nançay Upgrading LOFAR) is a new radioastronomy instrument, operating in the 10 – 85 MHz frequency band, which is in the last stages of its construction at the Station de Radioastronomie in Nançay (France). At completion, the instrument will be composed of a compact core of 96 mini-arrays of 19 antennas each plus 6 distant mini-arrays.

Four operating modes will be implemented: standalone beamformer, standalone imager, Transient Buffer mode, and LOFAR super-station.

The scientific questions that can be adressed with NenuFAR are very diverse: cosmology, pulsars, solar and stellar activity, lightning storms on solar system planets, exoplanets, transient phenomena, AGN, extragalactic diffuse emission, recombination lines...

The instrumental setup and operation modes are described in detailed on NenuFAR's astronomers page.

The Comité Scientifique de NenuFAR (NenuFAR Scientific Committee, CSN) has issued a call for proposals for Key Programmes (KP) using NenuFAR for the Early Science phase of the instrument, from July 2019 to December 2021. During this period, we anticipate that a total of approximately 8000 hours of observations should be available for KPs. The KP proposals may include any of the standalone operating modes of NenuFAR, or a combination of these modes, but should consider the progressive availability of the observing modes. The LSS mode will be accessed through regular LOFAR calls.

Any member of the French scientific community, and, by invitation, international researchers, may answer the call. The CSN expects proposals submitted by structured teams led by a KP coordinator. However, individuals wishing to join a KP may also apply.

For the call for Key Programmes, see here.

NenuFAR will be a powerful but complex instrument. In order to help the teams to prepare their proposals in the best possible way, and to introduce observers to NenuFAR data, a 2-day NenuFAR data workshop is organized at the Station de Radioastronomie de Nançay from March 2019, 18th at 12am to March, 20th at 2pm.

The workshop format will be the following: the fist session, in the afternoon of March 18th, will be devoted to a presentation of the instrument, its operating modes, the different data products and of the available analysis tools. During the second day,  workshop participants will be invited to make short presentations of their projects, focussing on the expected data and the observation strategy. The NenuFAR building and commissioning teams and experts will be available to interact with the KP representatives on their needs so that they can optimize their proposals. If possible, participants will get “hands-on” experience on real data representative of the observations they are going to conduct on NenuFAR.

Teams that intend to propose a KP are expected to send a least one team member to attend the workshop.

To register, go to Registration on the Main menu.

You will have to use your Sciencesconf account, or to create it if you do not have one.