论文标题

MWA绑定阵列加工IV:用于脉冲星调查和电离层校正定位的多像素边界器

MWA Tied-Array Processing IV: A Multi-Pixel Beamformer for Pulsar Surveys and Ionospheric Corrected Localisation

论文作者

Swainston, N. A., Bhat, N. D. R., Morrison, I. S., McSweeney, S. J., Ord, S. M., Tremblay, S. E., Sokolowski, M.

论文摘要

Murchison广场阵列(MWA)是一个低频孔径阵列,能够具有高时间和频率分辨率的天文应用,例如PULSAR研究。也可以利用MWA(数百个平方度)的大型视野(数百个平方度)来获得全套脉冲星搜索应用的快速调查速度,但是要最大程度地提高灵敏度,就需要从每个电压接合观察中形成数千个绑扎阵列梁。使用与目标观察分离的校准溶液在时间和空间上分离的必要性使脉冲星观察因电离层而容易受到未经校正的,频率依赖的位置偏移的影响。这些偏移量可能足够大,可以将源从绑定阵列束的中心移开,在II期扩展阵列配置中产生$ \ sim $ 30-50 \%的灵敏度下降。我们在脉冲星观测中分析了这些偏移,并开发了一种减轻它们的方法,从而提高了源位置的准确性和灵敏度。该分析促使开发多像素光束成型功能,该功能可以同时生成数十个绑定的阵列光束,与原始的单像素版本相比,该功能的运行速度快十倍。这种增强功能使观察MWA的广阔视野中的多个脉冲星可行,并支持正在进行的大规模脉冲星调查工作。我们探讨了MWA III和低频平方公里阵列(SKA-LOW)需要的电离层偏移校正程度。

The Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) is a low-frequency aperture array capable of high-time and frequency resolution astronomy applications such as pulsar studies. The large field-of-view of the MWA (hundreds of square degrees) can also be exploited to attain fast survey speeds for all-sky pulsar search applications, but to maximise sensitivity requires forming thousands of tied-array beams from each voltage-capture observation. The necessity of using calibration solutions that are separated from the target observation both temporally and spatially makes pulsar observations vulnerable to uncorrected, frequency-dependent positional offsets due to the ionosphere. These offsets may be large enough to move the source away from the centre of the tied-array beam, incurring sensitivity drops of $\sim$30-50\% in Phase II extended array configuration. We analyse these offsets in pulsar observations and develop a method for mitigating them, improving both the source position accuracy and the sensitivity. This analysis prompted the development of a multi-pixel beamforming functionality that can generate dozens of tied-array beams simultaneously, which runs a factor of ten times faster compared to the original single-pixel version. This enhancement makes it feasible to observe multiple pulsars within the vast field of view of the MWA and supports the ongoing large-scale pulsar survey efforts with the MWA. We explore the extent to which ionospheric offset correction will be necessary for the MWA Phase III and the low-frequency Square Kilometre Array (SKA-Low).

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