| 1. |
- van Haarlem, M. P., et al.
(författare)
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LOFAR : The LOw-Frequency ARray
- 2013
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Ingår i: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 556, s. 1-53
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- LOFAR, the LOw-Frequency ARray, is a new-generation radio interferometer constructed in the north of the Netherlands and across europe. Utilizing a novel phased-array design, LOFAR covers the largely unexplored low-frequency range from 10–240 MHz and provides a number of unique observing capabilities. Spreading out from a core located near the village of Exloo in the northeast of the Netherlands, a total of 40 LOFAR stations are nearing completion. A further five stations have been deployed throughout Germany, and one station has been built in each of France, Sweden, and the UK. Digital beam-forming techniques make the LOFAR system agile and allow for rapid repointing of the telescope as well as the potential for multiple simultaneous observations. With its dense core array and long interferometric baselines, LOFAR achieves unparalleled sensitivity and angular resolution in the low-frequency radio regime. The LOFAR facilities are jointly operated by the International LOFAR Telescope (ILT) foundation, as an observatory open to the global astronomical community. LOFAR is one of the first radio observatories to feature automated processing pipelines to deliver fully calibrated science products to its user community. LOFAR’s new capabilities, techniques and modus operandi make it an important pathfinder for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). We give an overview of the LOFAR instrument, its major hardware and software components, and the core science objectives that have driven its design. In addition, we present a selection of new results from the commissioning phase of this new radio observatory.
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| 2. |
- Heald, G. H., et al.
(författare)
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The LOFAR Multifrequency Snapshot Sky Survey (MSSS) : I. Survey description and first results
- 2015
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Ingår i: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 582, s. 1-22
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We present the Multifrequency Snapshot Sky Survey (MSSS), the first northern-sky Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) imaging survey. In this introductory paper, we first describe in detail the motivation and design of the survey. Compared to previous radio surveys, MSSS is exceptional due to its intrinsic multifrequency nature providing information about the spectral properties of the detected sources over more than two octaves (from 30 to 160 MHz). The broadband frequency coverage, together with the fast survey speed generated by LOFAR’s multibeaming capabilities, make MSSS the first survey of the sort anticipated to be carried out with the forthcoming Square Kilometre Array (SKA). Two of the sixteen frequency bands included in the survey were chosen to exactly overlap the frequency coverage of large-area Very Large Array (VLA) and Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) surveys at 74 MHz and 151 MHz respectively. The survey performance is illustrated within the MSSS Verification Field (MVF), a region of 100 square degrees centered at (α,δ)J2000 = (15h,69°). The MSSS results from the MVF are compared with previous radio survey catalogs. We assess the flux and astrometric uncertainties in the catalog, as well as the completeness and reliability considering our source finding strategy. We determine the 90% completeness levels within the MVF to be 100 mJy at 135 MHz with 108″ resolution, and 550 mJy at 50 MHz with 166″ resolution. Images and catalogs for the full survey, expected to contain 150 000–200 000 sources, will be released to a public web server. We outline the plans for the ongoing production of the final survey products, and the ultimate public release of images and source catalogs.
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| 3. |
- Stewart, A. J., et al.
(författare)
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LOFAR MSSS : detection of a low-frequency radio transient in 400 h of monitoring of the North Celestial Pole
- 2016
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Ingår i: Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0035-8711 .- 1365-2966. ; 456:3, s. 2321-2342
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We present the results of a four-month campaign searching for low-frequency radio transients near the North Celestial Pole with the Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR), as part of the Multifrequency Snapshot Sky Survey (MSSS). The data were recorded between 2011 December and 2012 April and comprised 2149 11-min snapshots, each covering 175 deg2. We have found one convincing candidate astrophysical transient, with a duration of a few minutes and a flux density at 60 MHz of 15–25 Jy. The transient does not repeat and has no obvious optical or high-energy counterpart, as a result of which its nature is unclear. The detection of this event implies a transient rate at 60 MHz of 3.9−3.7+14.7×10−4" style="position: relative;" tabindex="0" id="MathJax-Element-1-Frame" class="MathJax">3.9+14.7−3.7×10−4 d−1 deg−2, and a transient surface density of 1.5 × 10−5 deg−2, at a 7.9-Jy limiting flux density and ∼10-min time-scale. The campaign data were also searched for transients at a range of other time-scales, from 0.5 to 297 min, which allowed us to place a range of limits on transient rates at 60 MHz as a function of observation duration.
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| 4. |
- Buitink, S., et al.
(författare)
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A large light-mass component of cosmic rays at 1017–1017.5 electronvolts from radio observations
- 2016
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Ingår i: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 531:7592, s. 70-73
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Cosmic rays are the highest-energy particles found in nature. Measurements of the mass composition of cosmic rays with energies of 1017–1018 electronvolts are essential to understanding whether they have galactic or extragalactic sources. It has also been proposed that the astrophysical neutrino signal1 comes from accelerators capable of producing cosmic rays of these energies2. Cosmic rays initiate air showers—cascades of secondary particles in the atmosphere—and their masses can be inferred from measurements of the atmospheric depth of the shower maximum3 (Xmax; the depth of the air shower when it contains the most particles) or of the composition of shower particles reaching the ground4. Current measurements5 have either high uncertainty, or a low duty cycle and a high energy threshold. Radio detection of cosmic rays6, 7, 8 is a rapidly developing technique9 for determining Xmax (refs 10, 11) with a duty cycle of, in principle, nearly 100 per cent. The radiation is generated by the separation of relativistic electrons and positrons in the geomagnetic field and a negative charge excess in the shower front6, 12. Here we report radio measurements of Xmax with a mean uncertainty of 16 grams per square centimetre for air showers initiated by cosmic rays with energies of 1017–1017.5 electronvolts. This high resolution in Xmax enables us to determine the mass spectrum of the cosmic rays: we find a mixed composition, with a light-mass fraction (protons and helium nuclei) of about 80 per cent. Unless, contrary to current expectations, the extragalactic component of cosmic rays contributes substantially to the total flux below 1017.5 electronvolts, our measurements indicate the existence of an additional galactic component, to account for the light composition that we measured in the 1017–1017.5 electronvolt range.
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| 5. |
- Arias, M., et al.
(författare)
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Low-frequency radio absorption in Cassiopeia A
- 2018
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Ingår i: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 612
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Context. Cassiopeia A is one of the best-studied supernova remnants. Its bright radio and X-ray emission is due to shocked ejecta. Cas A is rather unique in that the unshocked ejecta can also be studied: through emission in the infrared, the radio-active decay of Ti-44, and the low-frequency free-free absorption caused by cold ionised gas, which is the topic of this paper. Aims. Free-free absorption processes are affected by the mass, geometry, temperature, and ionisation conditions in the absorbing gas. Observations at the lowest radio frequencies can constrain a combination of these properties. Methods. We used Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) Low Band Antenna observations at 30-77 MHz and Very Large Array (VLA) L-band observations at 1-2 GHz to fit for internal absorption as parametrised by the emission measure. We simultaneously fit multiple UV-matched images with a common resolution of 17 '' (this corresponds to 0.25 pc for a source at the distance of Cas A). The ample frequency coverage allows us separate the relative contributions from the absorbing gas, the unabsorbed front of the shell, and the absorbed back of the shell to the emission spectrum. We explored the effects that a temperature lower than the similar to 100-500 K proposed from infrared observations and a high degree of clumping can have on the derived physical properties of the unshocked material, such as its mass and density. We also compiled integrated radio flux density measurements, fit for the absorption processes that occur in the radio band, and considered their effect on the secular decline of the source. Results. We find a mass in the unshocked ejecta of M = 2.95 +/- 0.48 M-circle dot for an assumed gas temperature of T = 100 K. This estimate is reduced for colder gas temperatures and, most significantly, if the ejecta are clumped. We measure the reverse shock to have a radius of 114 '' +/- 6 '' and be centred at 23:23:26, +58:48:54 (J2000). We also find that a decrease in the amount of mass in the unshocked ejecta (as more and more material meets the reverse shock and heats up) cannot account for the observed low-frequency behaviour of the secular decline rate. Conclusions. To reconcile our low-frequency absorption measurements with models that reproduce much of the observed behaviour in Cas A and predict little mass in the unshocked ejecta, the ejecta need to be very clumped or the temperature in the cold gas needs to be low (similar to 10 K). Both of these options are plausible and can together contribute to the high absorption value that we find.
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| 6. |
- Jelic, V., et al.
(författare)
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Initial LOFAR observations of epoch of reionization windows II. Diffuse polarized emission in the ELAIS-N1 field
- 2014
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Ingår i: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 568, s. A101-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Aims. This study aims to characterise the polarized foreground emission in the ELAIS-N1 field and to address its possible implications or extracting of the cosmological 21 cm signal from the LOw-Frequency ARray - Epoch of Reionization (LOFAR-EoR) data Methods. We used the high band antennas of LOFAR to image this region and RM-synthesis to unravel structures of polarized emission at high Galactic latitudes. Results. The brightness temperature of the detected Galactic emission is on average similar to 4 K in polarized intensity and covers the range from -10 to +13 rad m(-2) in Faraday depth, The total polarized intensity and polarization angle show a wide range of morphological features. We have also used the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT) at 350 MHz to image the same region. The LOFAR and WSRT images show a similar complex morphology at comparable brightness levels, but their spatial correlation is very low. The fractional polarization at 150 MHz, expressed as a percentage of the total intensity, amounts to approximate to 1.5%. There is no indication of diffuse emission in total intensity in the interferometric data. in line with results at higher frequencies Conclusions. The wide frequency range. high angular resolution, and high sensitivity make LOFAR an exquisite instrument for studying Galactic polarized emission at a resolution of similar to 1-2 rad m(-2) in Faraday depth. The different polarized patterns observed at 150 MHz and 350 MHz are consistent with different source distributions along the line of sight wring in a variety of Faraday thin regions of emission. The presence of polarized foregrounds is a serious complication for epoch of reionization experiments. To avoid the leakage of polarized emission into total intensity, which can depend on frequency, we need to calibrate the instrumental polarization across the field of view to a small fraction of 1%.
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| 7. |
- van Weeren, R. J., et al.
(författare)
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Lofar low-band antenna observations of the 3C 295 and boötes fields: Source counts and ultra-steep spectrum sources
- 2014
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Ingår i: Astrophysical Journal. - 1538-4357 .- 0004-637X. ; 793:2, s. art. 82-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We present Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) Low Band observations of the Bootes and 3C 295 fields. Our images made at 34, 46, and 62 MHz reach noise levels of 12, 8, and 5 mJy beam(-1), making them the deepest images ever obtained in this frequency range. In total, we detect between 300 and 400 sources in each of these images, covering an area of 17-52 deg(2). From the observations, we derive Euclidean-normalized differential source counts. The 62 MHz source counts agree with previous GMRT 153 MHz and Very Large Array 74 MHz differential source counts, scaling with a spectral index of -0.7. We find that a spectral index scaling of -0.5 is required to match up the LOFAR 34 MHz source counts. This result is also in agreement with source counts from the 38 MHz 8C survey, indicating that the average spectral index of radio sources flattens toward lower frequencies. We also find evidence for spectral flattening using the individual flux measurements of sources between 34 and 1400 MHz and by calculating the spectral index averaged over the source population. To select ultra-steep spectrum (alpha
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| 8. |
- Grun, E., et al.
(författare)
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The 2016 Feb 19 outburst of comet 67P/CG : an ESA Rosetta multi-instrument study
- 2016
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Ingår i: Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0035-8711 .- 1365-2966. ; 462, s. S220-S234
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- On 2016 Feb 19, nine Rosetta instruments serendipitously observed an outburst of gas and dust from the nucleus of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Among these instruments were cameras and spectrometers ranging from UV over visible to microwave wavelengths, in situ gas, dust and plasma instruments, and one dust collector. At 09: 40 a dust cloud developed at the edge of an image in the shadowed region of the nucleus. Over the next two hours the instruments recorded a signature of the outburst that significantly exceeded the background. The enhancement ranged from 50 per cent of the neutral gas density at Rosetta to factors > 100 of the brightness of the coma near the nucleus. Dust related phenomena (dust counts or brightness due to illuminated dust) showed the strongest enhancements (factors > 10). However, even the electron density at Rosetta increased by a factor 3 and consequently the spacecraft potential changed from similar to-16 V to -20 V during the outburst. A clear sequence of events was observed at the distance of Rosetta ( 34 km from the nucleus): within 15 min the Star Tracker camera detected fast particles (similar to 25 m s(-1)) while 100 mu m radius particles were detected by the GIADA dust instrument similar to 1 h later at a speed of 6 m s(-1). The slowest were individual mm to cm sized grains observed by the OSIRIS cameras. Although the outburst originated just outside the FOV of the instruments, the source region and the magnitude of the outburst could be determined.
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| 9. |
- Morabito, L., et al.
(författare)
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Sub-arcsecond imaging with the International LOFAR Telescope: I. Foundational calibration strategy and pipeline
- 2022
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Ingår i: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 658
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The International LOFAR Telescope is an interferometer with stations spread across Europe. With baselines of up to ∼2000 km, LOFAR has the unique capability of achieving sub-arcsecond resolution at frequencies below 200 MHz. However, it is technically and logistically challenging to process LOFAR data at this resolution. To date only a handful of publications have exploited this capability. Here we present a calibration strategy that builds on previous high-resolution work with LOFAR. It is implemented in a pipeline using mostly dedicated LOFAR software tools and the same processing framework as the LOFAR Two-metre Sky Survey (LoTSS). We give an overview of the calibration strategy and discuss the special challenges inherent to enacting high-resolution imaging with LOFAR, and describe the pipeline, which is publicly available, in detail. We demonstrate the calibration strategy by using the pipeline on P205+55, a typical LoTSS pointing with an 8 h observation and 13 international stations. We perform in-field delay calibration, solution referencing to other calibrators in the field, self-calibration of these calibrators, and imaging of example directions of interest in the field. We find that for this specific field and these ionospheric conditions, dispersive delay solutions can be transferred between calibrators up to ∼1.5° away, while phase solution transferral works well over ∼1°. We also demonstrate a check of the astrometry and flux density scale with the in-field delay calibrator source. Imaging in 17 directions, we find the restoring beam is typically ∼0.3″ ×0.2″ although this varies slightly over the entire 5 deg2 field of view. We find we can achieve ∼80-300 μJy bm-1 image rms noise, which is dependent on the distance from the phase centre; typical values are ∼90 μJy bm-1 for the 8 h observation with 48 MHz of bandwidth. Seventy percent of processed sources are detected, and from this we estimate that we should be able to image roughly 900 sources per LoTSS pointing. This equates to ∼ 3 million sources in the northern sky, which LoTSS will entirely cover in the next several years. Future optimisation of the calibration strategy for efficient post-processing of LoTSS at high resolution makes this estimate a lower limit.
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| 10. |
- Shimwell, T. W., et al.
(författare)
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The LOFAR Two-metre Sky Survey: I. Survey description and preliminary data release
- 2017
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Ingår i: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 598, s. Art no A104-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The LOFAR Two-metre Sky Survey (LoTSS) is a deep 120-168 MHz imaging survey that will eventually cover the entire northern sky. Each of the 3170 pointings will be observed for 8 h, which, at most declinations, is sufficient to produce ~5? resolution images with a sensitivity of ~100 ?Jy/beam and accomplish the main scientific aims of the survey, which are to explore the formation and evolution of massive black holes, galaxies, clusters of galaxies and large-scale structure. Owing to the compact core and long baselines of LOFAR, the images provide excellent sensitivity to both highly extended and compact emission. For legacy value, the data are archived at high spectral and time resolution to facilitate subarcsecond imaging and spectral line studies. In this paper we provide an overview of the LoTSS. We outline the survey strategy, the observational status, the current calibration techniques, a preliminary data release, and the anticipated scientific impact. The preliminary images that we have released were created using a fully automated but direction-independent calibration strategy and are significantly more sensitive than those produced by any existing large-Area low-frequency survey. In excess of 44 000 sources are detected in the images that have a resolution of 25?, typical noise levels of less than 0.5 mJy/beam, and cover an area of over 350 square degrees in the region of the HETDEX Spring Field (right ascension 10h45m00s to 15h30m00s and declination 45°00?00? to 57°00?00?).
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