28 research outputs found

    Visibility based angular power spectrum estimation in low frequency radio interferometric observations

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    We present two estimators to quantify the angular power spectrum of the sky signal directly from the visibilities measured in radio interferometric observations. This is relevant for both the foregrounds and the cosmological 21-cm signal buried therein. The discussion here is restricted to the Galactic synchrotron radiation, the most dominant foreground component after point source removal. Our theoretical analysis is validated using simulations at 150 MHz, mainly for GMRT and also briefly for LOFAR. The Bare Estimator uses pairwise correlations of the measured visibilities, while the Tapered Gridded Estimator uses the visibilities after gridding in the uv plane. The former is very precise, but computationally expensive for large data. The latter has a lower precision, but takes less computation time which is proportional to the data volume. The latter also allows tapering of the sky response leading to sidelobe suppression, an useful ingredient for foreground removal. Both estimators avoid the positive bias that arises due to the system noise. We consider amplitude and phase errors of the gain, and the w-term as possible sources of errors . We find that the estimated angular power spectrum is exponentially sensitive to the variance of the phase errors but insensitive to amplitude errors. The statistical uncertainties of the estimators are affected by both amplitude and phase errors. The w-term does not have a significant effect at the angular scales of our interest. We propose the Tapered Gridded Estimator as an effective tool to observationally quantify both foregrounds and the cosmological 21-cm signal.Comment: 20 pages, 15 figures, 1 table.One typo corrected in Fig.13. Accepted for publication in MNRA

    The prospects of measuring the angular power spectrum of the diffuse Galactic synchrotron emission with SKA1 Low

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    The diffuse Galactic synchrotron emission (DGSE) is the most important diffuse foreground component for future cosmological 21-cm observations. The DGSE is also an important probe of the cosmic ray electron and magnetic field distributions in the turbulent interstellar medium (ISM) of our Galaxy. In this paper we briefly review the Tapered Gridded Estimator (TGE) which can be used to quantify the angular power spectrum of the sky signal directly from the visibilities measured in radio-interferometric observations. The salient features of the TGE are (1.) it deals with the gridded data which makes it computationally very fast (2.) it avoids a positive noise bias which normally arises from the system noise inherent to the visibility data, and (3.) it allows us to taper the sky response and thereby suppresses the contribution from unsubtracted point sources in the outer parts and the sidelobes of the antenna beam pattern. We also summarize earlier work where the TGE was used to measure the C_l of the DGSE using 150 MHz GMRT data. Earlier measurements of the angular power spectrum are restricted to smaller angular multipole l ~ 10^3 for the DGSE, the signal at the larger l values is dominated by the residual point sources after source subtraction. The higher sensitivity of the upcoming SKA1 Low will allow the point sources to be subtracted to a fainter level than possible with existing telescopes. We predict that it will be possible to measure the angular power spectrum of the DGSE to larger values of l with SKA1 Low. Our results show that it should be possible to achieve l_{max} ~ 10^4 and ~ 10^5 with 2 minutes and 10 hours of observations respectively.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures; Accepted for publication in Journal of Astrophysics and Astronomy (JOAA) special issue on "Science with the SKA: an Indian perspective

    Validating a novel angular power spectrum estimator using simulated low frequency radio-interferometric data

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    The "Tapered Gridded Estimator" (TGE) is a novel way to directly estimate the angular power spectrum from radio-interferometric visibility data that reduces the computation by efficiently gridding the data, consistently removes the noise bias, and suppresses the foreground contamination to a large extent by tapering the primary beam response through an appropriate convolution in the visibility domain. Here we demonstrate the effectiveness of TGE in recovering the diffuse emission power spectrum through numerical simulations. We present details of the simulation used to generate low frequency visibility data for sky model with extragalactic compact radio sources and diffuse Galactic synchrotron emission. We then use different imaging strategies to identify the most effective option of point source subtraction and to study the underlying diffuse emission. Finally, we apply TGE to the residual data to measure the angular power spectrum, and assess the impact of incomplete point source subtraction in recovering the input power spectrum CC_{\ell} of the synchrotron emission. This estimator is found to successfully recovers the CC_{\ell} of input model from the residual visibility data. These results are relevant for measuring the diffuse emission like the Galactic synchrotron emission. It is also an important step towards characterizing and removing both diffuse and compact foreground emission in order to detect the redshifted 21cm21\, {\rm cm} signal from the Epoch of Reionization.Comment: 18 pages, 1 table, 9 figures, Accepted for publication in New Astronom

    The visibility based Tapered Gridded Estimator (TGE) for the redshifted 21-cm power spectrum

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    We present the improved visibility based Tapered Gridded Estimator (TGE) for the power spectrum of the diffuse sky signal. The visibilities are gridded to reduce the computation, and tapered through a convolution to suppress the contribution from the outer regions of the telescope's field of view. The TGE also internally estimates the noise bias, and subtracts this out to give an unbiased estimate of the power spectrum. An earlier version of the 2D TGE for the angular power spectrum CC_{\ell} is improved and then extended to obtain the 3D TGE for the power spectrum P(k)P({\bf k}) of the 21-cm brightness temperature fluctuations. Analytic formulas are also presented for predicting the variance of the binned power spectrum. The estimator and its variance predictions are validated using simulations of 150MHz150 \, {\rm MHz} GMRT observations. We find that the estimator accurately recovers the input model for the 1D Spherical Power Spectrum P(k)P(k) and the 2D Cylindrical Power Spectrum P(k,k)P(k_\perp,k_\parallel), and the predicted variance is also in reasonably good agreement with the simulations.Comment: 19 pages, 13 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS. The definitive version will be available at http://mnrasl.oxfordjournals.org

    All-sky angular power spectrum – I. Estimating brightness temperature fluctuations using the 150-MHz TGSS survey

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    Measurements of the Galactic synchrotron emission are important for the 21-cm studies of the epoch of reionization. The study of synchrotron emission is also useful for quantifying the fluctuations in the magnetic field and the cosmic-ray electron density of the turbulent interstellar medium (ISM) of our Galaxy. Here, we present the all-sky angular power spectrum (Cℓ) measurements of the diffuse synchrotron emission obtained using the TIFR GMRT Sky Survey (TGSS) at 150 MHz

    Towards 21-cm Intensity Mapping at z=2.28z=2.28 with uGMRT using the Tapered Gridded Estimator I: Foreground Avoidance

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    The post-reionization (z6)(z \le 6) neutral hydrogen (HI) 21-cm intensity mapping signal holds the potential to probe the large scale structures, study the expansion history and constrain various cosmological parameters. Here we apply the Tapered Gridded Estimator (TGE) to estimate P(k,k)P(k_{\perp},k_{\parallel}) the power spectrum of the z=2.28z = 2.28 (432.8MHz)(432.8\, {\rm MHz}) redshifted 21-cm signal using a 24.4MHz24.4\,{\rm MHz} sub-band drawn from uGMRT Band 3 observations of European Large-Area ISO Survey-North 1 (ELAIS-N1). The TGE allows us to taper the sky response which suppresses the foreground contribution from sources in the periphery of the telescope's field of view. We apply the TGE on the measured visibility data to estimate the multi-frequency angular power spectrum (MAPS) C(Δν)C_{\ell}(\Delta\nu) from which we determine P(k,k)P(k_{\perp},k_{\parallel}) using maximum-likelihood which naturally overcomes the issue of missing frequency channels (55 \% here). The entire methodology is validated using simulations. For the data, using the foreground avoidance technique, we obtain a 2σ2\,\sigma upper limit of Δ2(k)(133.97)2mK2\Delta^2(k) \le (133.97)^2 \, {\rm mK}^{2} for the 21-cm brightness temperature fluctuation at k=0.347Mpc1k = 0.347 \, \textrm{Mpc}^{-1}. This corresponds to [ΩHIbHI]0.23[\Omega_{\rm HI}b_{\rm HI}] \le 0.23, where ΩHI\Omega_{\rm HI} and bHIb_{\rm HI} respectively denote the cosmic \HI mass density and the \HI bias parameter. A previous work has analyzed 8MHz8 \, {\rm MHz} of the same data at z=2.19z=2.19, and reported Δ2(k)(61.49)2mK2\Delta^{2}(k) \le (61.49)^{2} \, {\rm mK}^{2} and [ΩHIbHI]0.11[\Omega_{\rm HI} b_{\rm HI}] \le 0.11 at k=1Mpc1k=1 \, {\rm Mpc}^{-1}. The upper limits presented here are still orders of magnitude larger than the expected signal corresponding to ΩHI103\Omega_{\rm HI} \sim 10^{-3} and bHI2b_{\rm HI} \sim 2 .Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

    Towards 2121-cm intensity mapping at z=2.28z=2.28 with uGMRT using the tapered gridded estimator III: Foreground removal

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    Neutral hydrogen (\ion{H}{i}) 2121-cm intensity mapping (IM) is a promising probe of the large-scale structures in the Universe. However, a few orders of magnitude brighter foregrounds obscure the IM signal. Here we use the Tapered Gridded Estimator (TGE) to estimate the multi-frequency angular power spectrum (MAPS) C(Δν)C_{\ell}(\Delta\nu) from a 24.4MHz24.4\,\rm{MHz} bandwidth uGMRT Band 33 data at 432.8MHz432.8\,\rm{MHz}. In C(Δν)C_{\ell}(\Delta\nu) foregrounds remain correlated across the entire Δν\Delta\nu range, whereas the 2121-cm signal is localized within Δν[Δν]\Delta\nu\le[\Delta \nu] (typically 0.51MHz0.5-1\,\rm{MHz}). Assuming the range Δν>[Δν]\Delta\nu>[\Delta \nu] to have minimal 2121-cm signal, we use C(Δν)C_{\ell}(\Delta\nu) in this range to model the foregrounds. This foreground model is extrapolated to Δν[Δν]\Delta\nu\leq[\Delta \nu], and subtracted from the measured C(Δν)C_{\ell}(\Delta\nu). The residual [C(Δν)]res[C_{\ell}(\Delta\nu)]_{\rm res} in the range Δν[Δν]\Delta\nu\le[\Delta\nu] is used to constrain the 2121-cm signal, compensating for the signal loss from foreground subtraction. [C(Δν)]res[C_{\ell}(\Delta\nu)]_{\rm{res}} is found to be noise-dominated without any trace of foregrounds. Using [C(Δν)]res[C_{\ell}(\Delta\nu)]_{\rm res} we constrain the 2121-cm brightness temperature fluctuations Δ2(k)\Delta^2(k), and obtain the 2σ2\sigma upper limit ΔUL2(k)(18.07)2mK2\Delta_{\rm UL}^2(k)\leq(18.07)^2\,\rm{mK^2} at k=0.247Mpc1k=0.247\,\rm{Mpc}^{-1}. We further obtain the 2σ2\sigma upper limit [\Omega_{\ion{H}{i}}b_{\ion{H}{i}}]_{\rm UL}\leq0.022 where \Omega_{\ion{H}{i}} and b_{\ion{H}{i}} are the comoving \ion{H}{i} density and bias parameters respectively. Although the upper limit is nearly 1010 times larger than the expected 2121-cm signal, it is 33 times tighter over previous works using foreground avoidance on the same data.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS. 16 pages (including Appendix), 8 figures (plus 8 in Appendix), 5 Table

    Towards 2121-cm intensity mapping at z=2.28z=2.28 with uGMRT using the tapered gridded estimator -- IV. Wideband analysis

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    We present a Wideband Tapered Gridded Estimator (TGE), which incorporates baseline migration and variation of the primary beam pattern for neutral hydrogen (HI{\rm H\hspace{0.5mm}}{\scriptsize {\rm I}}) 21-cm intensity mapping (IM) with large frequency bandwidth radio-interferometric observations. Here we have analysed 394494MHz394-494 \, {\rm MHz} (z=1.92.6)(z = 1.9 - 2.6) uGMRT data to estimate the Multi-frequency Angular Power Spectrum (MAPS) C(Δν)C_\ell(\Delta\nu) from which we have removed the foregrounds using the polynomial fitting (PF) and Gaussian Process Regression (GPR) methods developed in our earlier work. Using the residual C(Δν)C_\ell(\Delta\nu) to estimate the mean squared 21-cm brightness temperature fluctuation Δ2(k)\Delta^2(k), we find that this is consistent with 0±2σ0 \pm 2 \sigma in several kk bins. The resulting 2σ2\sigma upper limit Δ2(k)<(4.68)2mK2\Delta^2(k) < (4.68)^2 \, \rm{mK^2} at k=0.219Mpc1k=0.219\,\rm{Mpc^{-1}} is nearly 1515 times tighter than earlier limits obtained from a smaller bandwidth (24.4MHz24.4 \, {\rm MHz}) of the same data. The 2σ2\sigma upper limit [ΩHIbHI]<1.01×102[\Omega_{{\rm H\hspace{0.5mm}}{\scriptsize {\rm I}}} b_{{\rm H\hspace{0.5mm}}{\scriptsize {\rm I}}}] < 1.01 \times 10^{-2} is within an order of magnitude of the value expected from independent estimates of the HI{\rm H\hspace{0.5mm}}{\scriptsize {\rm I}} mass density ΩHI\Omega_{{\rm H\hspace{0.5mm}}{\scriptsize {\rm I}}} and the HI{\rm H\hspace{0.5mm}}{\scriptsize {\rm I}} bias bHIb_{{\rm H\hspace{0.5mm}}{\scriptsize {\rm I}}}. The techniques used here can be applied to other telescopes and frequencies, including 150MHz\sim 150 \, {\rm MHz} Epoch of Reionization observations.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRA
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