24,285 research outputs found
The Expanded Very Large Array
In almost 30 years of operation, the Very Large Array (VLA) has proved to be
a remarkably flexible and productive radio telescope. However, the basic
capabilities of the VLA have changed little since it was designed. A major
expansion utilizing modern technology is currently underway to improve the
capabilities of the VLA by at least an order of magnitude in both sensitivity
and in frequency coverage. The primary elements of the Expanded Very Large
Array (EVLA) project include new or upgraded receivers for continuous frequency
coverage from 1 to 50 GHz, new local oscillator, intermediate frequency, and
wide bandwidth data transmission systems to carry signals with 16 GHz total
bandwidth from each antenna, and a new digital correlator with the capability
to process this bandwidth with an unprecedented number of frequency channels
for an imaging array. Also included are a new monitor and control system and
new software that will provide telescope ease of use. Scheduled for completion
in 2012, the EVLA will provide the world research community with a flexible,
powerful, general-purpose telescope to address current and future astronomical
issues.Comment: Added journal reference: published in Proceedings of the IEEE,
Special Issue on Advances in Radio Astronomy, August 2009, vol. 97, No. 8,
1448-1462 Six figures, one tabl
The STRIP instrument of the Large Scale Polarization Explorer: microwave eyes to map the Galactic polarized foregrounds
In this paper we discuss the latest developments of the STRIP instrument of
the "Large Scale Polarization Explorer" (LSPE) experiment. LSPE is a novel
project that combines ground-based (STRIP) and balloon-borne (SWIPE)
polarization measurements of the microwave sky on large angular scales to
attempt a detection of the "B-modes" of the Cosmic Microwave Background
polarization. STRIP will observe approximately 25% of the Northern sky from the
"Observatorio del Teide" in Tenerife, using an array of forty-nine coherent
polarimeters at 43 GHz, coupled to a 1.5 m fully rotating crossed-Dragone
telescope. A second frequency channel with six-elements at 95 GHz will be
exploited as an atmospheric monitor. At present, most of the hardware of the
STRIP instrument has been developed and tested at sub-system level.
System-level characterization, starting in July 2018, will lead STRIP to be
shipped and installed at the observation site within the end of the year. The
on-site verification and calibration of the whole instrument will prepare STRIP
for a 2-years campaign for the observation of the CMB polarization.Comment: 17 pages, 15 figures, proceedings of the SPIE Astronomical Telescopes
+ Instrumentation conference "Millimeter, Submillimeter, and Far-Infrared
Detectors and Instrumentation for Astronomy IX", on June 15th, 2018, Austin
(TX
Characterisation of the Mopra Radio Telescope at 16--50 GHz
We present the results of a programme of scanning and mapping observations of
astronomical masers and Jupiter designed to characterise the performance of the
Mopra Radio Telescope at frequencies between 16-50 GHz using the 12-mm and 7-mm
receivers. We use these observations to determine the telescope beam size, beam
shape and overall telescope beam efficiency as a function of frequency. We find
that the beam size is well fit by / over the frequency range with a
correlation coefficient of ~90%. We determine the telescope main beam
efficiencies are between ~48-64% for the 12-mm receiver and reasonably flat at
~50% for the 7-mm receiver. Beam maps of strong HO (22 GHz) and SiO masers
(43 GHz) provide a means to examine the radial beam pattern of the telescope.
At both frequencies the radial beam pattern reveals the presence of three
components, a central `core', which is well fit by a Gaussian and constitutes
the telescopes main beam, and inner and outer error beams. At both frequencies
the inner and outer error beams extend out to approximately 2 and 3.4 times the
full-width half maximum of the main beam respectively. Sources with angular
sizes a factor of two or more larger than the telescope main beam will couple
to the main and error beams, and therefore the power contributed by the error
beams needs to be considered. From measurements of the radial beam power
pattern we estimate the amount of power contained in the inner and outer error
beams is of order one-fifth at 22 GHz rising slightly to one-third at 43 GHz.Comment: Accepted for publication in PAS
Target motion estimation via a multistatic FSR
The focus of this paper is on the estimation of the kinematic parameters of moving targets
via a MIMO Forward Scatter Radar (FSR) system. A sub-optimum estimation technique is considered
that exploits the information concerning the time instants at which the target crosses the individual
baselines to retrieve the motion parameters. The accuracy of such technique is firstly investigated
from a theoretical point of view and then the effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated
by applying it to live MIMO FSR data. Shown results prove the practical applicability of the proposed
technique
AMiBA: Broadband Heterodyne CMB Interferometry
The Y. T. Lee Array for Microwave Background (AMiBA) has reported the first
science results on the detection of galaxy clusters via the Sunyaev Zel'dovich
effect. The science objectives required small reflectors in order to sample
large scale structures (20') while interferometry provided modest resolutions
(2'). With these constraints, we designed for the best sensitivity by utilizing
the maximum possible continuum bandwidth matched to the atmospheric window at
86-102GHz, with dual polarizations. A novel wide-band analog correlator was
designed that is easily expandable for more interferometer elements. MMIC
technology was used throughout as much as possible in order to miniaturize the
components and to enhance mass production. These designs will find application
in other upcoming astronomy projects. AMiBA is now in operations since 2006,
and we are in the process to expand the array from 7 to 13 elements.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, ApJ in press; a version with high resolution
figures available at
http://www.asiaa.sinica.edu.tw/~keiichi/upfiles/AMiBA7/mtc_highreso.pd
Impact of Simulated 1/f Noise for HI Intensity Mapping Experiments
Cosmology has entered an era where the experimental limitations are not due
to instrumental sensitivity but instead due to inherent systematic
uncertainties in the instrumentation and data analysis methods. The field of HI
intensity mapping (IM) is still maturing, however early attempts are already
systematics limited. One such systematic limitation is 1/f noise, which largely
originates within the instrumentation and manifests as multiplicative gain
fluctuations. To date there has been little discussion about the possible
impact of 1/f noise on upcoming single-dish HI IM experiments such as BINGO,
FAST or SKA. Presented in this work are Monte-Carlo end-to-end simulations of a
30 day HI IM survey using the SKA-MID array covering a bandwidth of 950 and
1410 MHz. These simulations extend 1/f noise models to include not just
temporal fluctuations but also correlated gain fluctuations across the receiver
bandpass. The power spectral density of the spectral gain fluctuations are
modelled as a power-law, and characterised by a parameter . It is found
that the degree of 1/f noise frequency correlation will be critical to the
success of HI IM experiments. Small values of ( < 0.25) or high
correlation is preferred as this is more easily removed using current component
separation techniques. The spectral index of temporal fluctuations ()
is also found to have a large impact on signal-to-noise. Telescope slew speed
has a smaller impact, and a scan speed of 1 deg s should be sufficient
for a HI IM survey with the SKA.Comment: 22 pages, 15 figures, 2 table
Role of scattering in virtual source array imaging
We consider imaging in a scattering medium where the illumination goes
through this medium but there is also an auxiliary, passive receiver array that
is near the object to be imaged. Instead of imaging with the source-receiver
array on the far side of the object we image with the data of the passive array
on the near side of the object. The imaging is done with travel time migration
using the cross correlations of the passive array data. We showed in [J.
Garnier and G. Papanicolaou, Inverse Problems {28} (2012), 075002] that if (i)
the source array is infinite, (ii) the scattering medium is modeled by either
an isotropic random medium in the paraxial regime or a randomly layered medium,
and (iii) the medium between the auxiliary array and the object to be imaged is
homogeneous, then imaging with cross correlations completely eliminates the
effects of the random medium. It is as if we imaged with an active array,
instead of a passive one, near the object. The purpose of this paper is to
analyze the resolution of the image when both the source array and the passive
receiver array are finite. We show with a detailed analysis that for isotropic
random media in the paraxial regime, imaging not only is not affected by the
inhomogeneities but the resolution can in fact be enhanced. This is because the
random medium can increase the diversity of the illumination. We also show
analytically that this will not happen in a randomly layered medium, and there
may be some loss of resolution in this case.Comment: 22 pages, 4 figure
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