Technical requirements flow-down for the concept design of the novel 50-meter Atacama Large Aperture Submm Telescope (AtLAST)

The Atacama Large Aperture Submm Telescope (AtLAST) is a concept for a novel 50-meter class single-dish telescope operating at sub-millimeter and millimeter wavelengths (30-950 GHz). The telescope will provide an unprecedented wide field of view (FoV) of 1 – 2deg diameter with a large receiver cabin housing six major instruments in Nasmyth and Cassegrain positions. The high observing frequencies, combined with the scanning operation movements with up to 3deg/s, placing high demands on accuracy and stability of the optical and structural components. The planned site location is in the Chilean Atacama Desert at approximately 5100 meters above sea level, near Llano de Chajnantor. The paper gives an overview on the optical, structural, and mechanical design concepts. It explains the flow down from key science requirements to technical design decisions as well as showing design analogies from other existing large radio and optical telescopes. Results from structural and performance analyses are presented.