6,770 research outputs found
Calibration Challenges for Future Radio Telescopes
Instruments for radio astronomical observations have come a long way. While
the first telescopes were based on very large dishes and 2-antenna
interferometers, current instruments consist of dozens of steerable dishes,
whereas future instruments will be even larger distributed sensor arrays with a
hierarchy of phased array elements. For such arrays to provide meaningful
output (images), accurate calibration is of critical importance. Calibration
must solve for the unknown antenna gains and phases, as well as the unknown
atmospheric and ionospheric disturbances. Future telescopes will have a large
number of elements and a large field of view. In this case the parameters are
strongly direction dependent, resulting in a large number of unknown parameters
even if appropriately constrained physical or phenomenological descriptions are
used. This makes calibration a daunting parameter estimation task, that is
reviewed from a signal processing perspective in this article.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures, 20 subfigures The title quoted in the meta-data
is the title after release / final editing
Detection of Signals from Cosmic Reionization using Radio Interferometric Signal Processing
Observations of the HI 21cm transition line promises to be an important probe
into the cosmic dark ages and epoch of reionization. One of the challenges for
the detection of this signal is the accuracy of the foreground source removal.
This paper investigates the extragalactic point source contamination and how
accurately the bright sources ( ~Jy) should be removed in order to
reach the desired RMS noise and be able to detect the 21cm transition line.
Here, we consider position and flux errors in the global sky-model for these
bright sources as well as the frequency independent residual calibration
errors. The synthesized beam is the only frequency dependent term included
here. This work determines the level of accuracy for the calibration and source
removal schemes and puts forward constraints for the design of the cosmic
reionization data reduction scheme for the upcoming low frequency arrays like
MWA,PAPER, etc. We show that in order to detect the reionization signal the
bright sources need to be removed from the data-sets with a positional accuracy
of arc-second. Our results also demonstrate that the efficient
foreground source removal strategies can only tolerate a frequency independent
antenna based mean residual calibration error of in amplitude
or degree in phase, if they are constant over each days of
observations (6 hours). In future papers we will extend this analysis to the
power spectral domain and also include the frequency dependent calibration
errors and direction dependent errors (ionosphere, primary beam, etc).Comment: accepted by ApJ; 12 pages, 10 figure
Perspectives on Gamma-Ray Burst Physics and Cosmology with Next Generation Facilities
High-redshift Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) beyond redshift are potentially
powerful tools to probe the distant early Universe. Their detections in large
numbers and at truly high redshifts call for the next generation of high-energy
wide-field instruments with unprecedented sensitivity at least one order of
magnitude higher than the ones currently in orbit. On the other hand, follow-up
observations of the afterglows of high-redshift GRBs and identification of
their host galaxies, which would be difficult for the currently operating
telescopes, require new, extremely large facilities of at multi-wavelengths.
This chapter describes future experiments that are expected to advance this
exciting field, both being currently built and being proposed. The legacy of
Swift will be continued by SVOM, which is equipped with a set of space-based
multi-wavelength instruments as well as and a ground segment including a wide
angle camera and two follow-up telescopes. The established Lobster-eye X-ray
focusing optics provides a promising technology for the detection of faint GRBs
at very large distances, based on which the {THESEUS}, {Einstein Probe} and
other mission concepts have been proposed. Follow-up observations and
exploration of the reionization era will be enabled by large facilities such as
{SKA} in the radio, the 30m class telescopes in the optical/near-IR, and the
space-borne {WFIRST} and {JWST} in the optical/near-IR/mid-IR. In addition, the
X-ray and -ray polarization experiment POLAR is also introduced.Comment: accepted for publication in Space Science Review; reprinted as a
chapter in a book of the Space Sciences Series of ISSI for the proceedings of
the ISSI-Beijing workshop " Gamma-Ray Bursts: a Tool to Explore the Young
Universe
Observing pulsars and fast transients with LOFAR
Low frequency radio waves, while challenging to observe,are a rich source of information about pulsars. The LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR) is a new radio interferometer operating in the lowest 4 octaves of the ionospheric âradio windowâ: 10â240 MHz, that will greatly facilitate observing pulsars at low radio frequencies. Through the huge collecting area, long baselines, and flexible digital hardware, it is expected that LOFAR will revolutionize radio astronomy at the lowest frequencies visible from Earth.LOFAR is a next-generation radio telescope and a pathfinder to the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), in that it incorporates advanced multi-beaming techniques between thousands of individual elements. We discuss the motivation for low-frequency pulsar observations in general and the potential of LOFAR in addressing these science goals.We present LOFAR as it is designed to perform high-time-resolution observations of pulsars and other fast transients, and outline the various relevant observing modes and data reduction pipelines that are already or will soon be implemented to facilitate these observations. A number of results obtained from commissioning observations are presented to demonstrate the exciting potential of the telescope. This paper outlines the case for low frequency pulsar observations and is also intended to serve as a reference for upcoming pulsar/fast transient science papers with LOFAR
Image formation in synthetic aperture radio telescopes
Next generation radio telescopes will be much larger, more sensitive, have
much larger observation bandwidth and will be capable of pointing multiple
beams simultaneously. Obtaining the sensitivity, resolution and dynamic range
supported by the receivers requires the development of new signal processing
techniques for array and atmospheric calibration as well as new imaging
techniques that are both more accurate and computationally efficient since data
volumes will be much larger. This paper provides a tutorial overview of
existing image formation techniques and outlines some of the future directions
needed for information extraction from future radio telescopes. We describe the
imaging process from measurement equation until deconvolution, both as a
Fourier inversion problem and as an array processing estimation problem. The
latter formulation enables the development of more advanced techniques based on
state of the art array processing. We demonstrate the techniques on simulated
and measured radio telescope data.Comment: 12 page
Synergy between the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope and the Square Kilometre Array
We provide an overview of the science benefits of combining information from
the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope
(LSST). We first summarise the capabilities and timeline of the LSST and
overview its science goals. We then discuss the science questions in common
between the two projects, and how they can be best addressed by combining the
data from both telescopes. We describe how weak gravitational lensing and
galaxy clustering studies with LSST and SKA can provide improved constraints on
the causes of the cosmological acceleration. We summarise the benefits to
galaxy evolution studies of combining deep optical multi-band imaging with
radio observations. Finally, we discuss the excellent match between one of the
most unique features of the LSST, its temporal cadence in the optical waveband,
and the time resolution of the SKA.Comment: SKA Synergies Chapter, Advancing Astrophysics with the SKA (AASKA14)
Conference, Giardini Naxos (Italy), June 9th-13th 201
- âŠ