| 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. |
- Oostrum, L. C., et al.
(författare)
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Repeating fast radio bursts with WSRT/Apertif
- 2020
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Ingår i: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 635
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Context. Repeating fast radio bursts (FRBs) present excellent opportunities to identify FRB progenitors and host environments as well as to decipher the underlying emission mechanism. Detailed studies of repeating FRBs might also hold clues as to the origin of FRBs as a population. Aims. We aim to detect bursts from the first two repeating FRBs, FRB 121102 (R1) and FRB 180814.J0422+73 (R2), and to characterise their repeat statistics. We also want to significantly improve the sky localisation of R2 and identify its host galaxy. Methods. We used the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope to conduct extensive follow-up of these two repeating FRBs. The new phased-array feed system, Apertif, allows one to cover the entire sky position uncertainty of R2 with fine spatial resolution in a single pointing. The data were searched for bursts around the known dispersion measures of the two sources. We characterise the energy distribution and the clustering of detected R1 bursts. Results. We detected 30 bursts from R1. The non-Poissonian nature is clearly evident from the burst arrival times, which is consistent with earlier claims. Our measurements indicate a dispersion measure (DM) of 563.5(2) pc cm(-3), suggesting a significant increase in DM over the past few years. Assuming a constant position angle across the burst, we place an upper limit of 8% on the linear polarisation fraction for the brightest burst in our sample. We did not detect any bursts from R2. Conclusions. A single power-law might not fit the R1 burst energy distribution across the full energy range or widely separated detections. Our observations provide improved constraints on the clustering of R1 bursts. Our stringent upper limits on the linear polarisation fraction imply a significant depolarisation, either intrinsic to the emission mechanism or caused by the intervening medium at 1400 MHz, which is not observed at higher frequencies. The non-detection of any bursts from R2, despite nearly 300 h of observations, implies either a highly clustered nature of the bursts, a steep spectral index, or a combination of the two assuming that the source is still active. Another possibility is that R2 has turned off completely, either permanently or for an extended period of time.
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| 3. |
- van Cappellen, W., et al.
(författare)
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Apertif: Phased array feeds for the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope: System overview and performance characteristics
- 2022
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Ingår i: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 658
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We describe the APERture Tile In Focus (Apertif) system, a phased array feed (PAF) upgrade of the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope that transforms this telescope into a high-sensitivity, wide-field-of-view L-band imaging and transient survey instrument. Using novel PAF technology, up to 40 partially overlapping beams are formed on the sky simultaneously, significantly increasing the survey speed of the telescope. With this upgraded instrument, an imaging survey covering an area of 2300 deg2 is being performed that will deliver both continuum and spectral line datasets, of which the first data have been publicly released. In addition, a time domain transient and pulsar survey covering 15 000 deg2 is in progress. An overview of the Apertif science drivers, hardware, and software of the upgraded telescope is presented, along with its key performance characteristics.
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| 4. |
- 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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| 5. |
- Adams, E. A. K., et al.
(författare)
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First release of Apertif imaging survey data
- 2022
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Ingår i: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 667
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Context. Apertif is a phased-array feed system for the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope, providing forty instantaneous beams over 300 MHz of bandwidth. A dedicated survey program utilizing this upgrade started on 1 July 2019, with the last observations taken on 28 February 2022. The imaging survey component provides radio continuum, polarization, and spectral line data. Aims. Public release of data is critical for maximizing the legacy of a survey. Toward that end, we describe the release of data products from the first year of survey operations, through 30 June 2020. In particular, we focus on defining quality control metrics for the processed data products. Methods. The Apertif imaging pipeline, Apercal, automatically produces non-primary beam corrected continuum images, polarization images and cubes, and uncleaned spectral line and dirty beam cubes for each beam of an Apertif imaging observation. For this release, processed data products are considered on a beam-by-beam basis within an observation. We validate the continuum images by using metrics that identify deviations from Gaussian noise in the residual images. If the continuum image passes validation, we release all processed data products for a given beam. We apply further validation to the polarization and line data products and provide flags indicating the quality of those data products. Results. We release all raw observational data from the first year of survey observations, for a total of 221 observations of 160 independent target fields, covering approximately one thousand square degrees of sky. Images and cubes are released on a per beam basis, and 3374 beams (of 7640 considered) are released. The median noise in the continuum images is 41.4 uJy beam(-1), with a slightly lower median noise of 36.9 uJy beam(-1) in the Stokes V polarization image. The median angular resolution is 11.6 ''/sin delta. The median noise for all line cubes, with a spectral resolution of 36.6 kHz, is 1.6 mJy beam(-1), corresponding to a 3-sigma H i column density sensitivity of 1.8 x 10(20) atoms cm(-2) over 20 km s(-1) (for a median angular resolution of 24 '' x 15 ''). Line cubes at lower frequency have slightly higher noise values, consistent with the global RFI environment and overall Apertif system performance. We also provide primary beam images for each individual Apertif compound beam. The data are made accessible using a Virtual Observatory interface and can be queried using a variety of standard tools.
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| 6. |
- Adebahr, B., et al.
(författare)
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Apercal - The Apertif calibration pipeline
- 2022
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Ingår i: Astronomy and Computing. - : Elsevier BV. - 2213-1337. ; 38
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Apertif (APERture Tile In Focus) is one of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) pathfinder facilities. The Apertif project is an upgrade to the 50-year-old Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT) using phased-array feed technology. The new receivers create 40 individual beams on the sky, achieving an instantaneous sky coverage of 6.5 square degrees. The primary goal of the Apertif Imaging Survey is to perform a wide survey of 3500 square degrees (AWES) and a medium deep survey of 350 square degrees (AMES) of neutral atomic hydrogen (up to a redshift of 0.26), radio continuum emission and polarisation. Each survey pointing yields 4.6 TB of correlated data. The goal of Apercal is to process this data and fully automatically generate science ready data products for the astronomical community while keeping up with the survey observations. We make use of common astronomical software packages in combination with Python based routines and parallelisation. We use an object oriented module-based approach to ensure easy adaptation of the pipeline. A Jupyter notebook based framework allows user interaction and execution of individual modules as well as a full automatic processing of a complete survey observation. If nothing interrupts processing, we are able to reduce a single pointing survey observation on our five node cluster with 24 physical cores and 256 GB of memory each within 24 h keeping up with the speed of the surveys. The quality of the generated images is sufficient for scientific usage for 44% of the recorded data products with single images reaching dynamic ranges of several thousands. Future improvements will increase this percentage to over 80%. Our design allowed development of the pipeline in parallel to the commissioning of the Apertif system.
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| 7. |
- Denes, H., et al.
(författare)
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Characterising the Apertif primary beam response
- 2022
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Ingår i: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 667
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Context. Phased array feeds (PAFs) are multi-element receivers in the focal plane of a telescope that make it possible to simultaneously form multiple beams on the sky by combining the complex gains of the individual antenna elements. Recently, the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT) was upgraded with PAF receivers to carry out several observing programs, including two imaging surveys and a time-domain survey. The Apertif imaging surveys use a configuration of 40 partially overlapping compound beams (CBs) simultaneously formed on the sky and arranged in an approximately rectangular shape. Aims. This work is aimed at characterising the response of the 40 Apertif CBs to create frequency-resolved I, XX, and YY polarization empirical beam shapes. The measured CB maps can be used for the image deconvolution, primary beam correction, and mosaicking processes of Apertif imaging data. Methods. We used drift scan measurements to measure the response of each of the 40 Apertif CBs. We derived beam maps for all individual beams in I, XX, and YY polarisation in 10 or 18 frequency bins over the same bandwidth as the Apertif imaging surveys. We sampled the main lobe of the beams and the side lobes up to a radius of 0.6 degrees from the beam centres. In addition, we derived beam maps for each individual WSRT dish. Results. We present the frequency and time dependence of the beam shapes and sizes. We compared the compound beam shapes derived with the drift scan method to beam shapes derived with an independent method using a Gaussian Process Regression comparison between the Apertif continuum images and the NRAO VLA Sky Survey (NVSS) catalogue. We find a good agreement between the beam shapes derived with the two independent methods.
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| 8. |
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| 9. |
- Bilous, A. V., et al.
(författare)
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Dual-frequency single-pulse study of PSR B0950+08
- 2022
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Ingår i: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 658
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- PSR B0950+08 is a bright nonrecycled pulsar whose single-pulse fluence variability is reportedly large. Based on observations at two widely separated frequencies, 55 MHz (NenuFAR) and 1.4 GHz (Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope), we review the properties of these single pulses. We conclude that they are more similar to ordinary pulses of radio emission than to a special kind of short and bright giant pulses, observed from only a handful of pulsars. We argue that a temporal variation of the properties of the interstellar medium along the line of sight to this nearby pulsar, namely the fluctuating size of the decorrelation bandwidth of diffractive scintillation makes an important contribution to the observed single-pulse fluence variability. We further present interesting structures in the low-frequency single-pulse spectra that resemble the "sad trombones"seen in fast radio bursts (FRBs); although for PSR B0950+08 the upward frequency drift is also routinely present. We explain these spectral features with radius-to-frequency mapping, similar to the model developed by Wang et al. (2019, ApJ, 876, L15) for FRBs. Finally, we speculate that μs-scale fluence variability of the general pulsar population remains poorly known, and that its further study may bring important clues about the nature of FRBs.
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| 10. |
- Hess, K. M., et al.
(författare)
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Apertif view of the OH megamaser IRAS 10597+5926: OH 18 cm satellite lines in wide-area H i surveys
- 2021
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Ingår i: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 647
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We present the serendipitous detection of the two main OH maser lines at 1667 and 1665 MHz associated with IRAS 10597+5926 at zpdbl = 0.19612 in the untargeted Apertif Wide-area Extragalactic imaging Survey (AWES), and the subsequent measurement of the OH 1612 MHz satellite line in the same source. With a total OH luminosity of log(L/Lpdbl ) = 3.90 ± 0.03, IRAS 10597+5926 is the fourth brightest OH megamaser (OHM) known. We measure a lower limit for the 1667/1612 ratio of R1612 > 45.9, which is the highest limiting ratio measured for the 1612 MHz OH satellite line to date. OH satellite line measurements provide a potentially valuable constraint by which to compare detailed models of OH maser pumping mechanisms. Optical imaging shows that the galaxy is likely a late-stage merger. Based on published infrared and far ultraviolet fluxes, we find that the galaxy is an ultra-luminous infrared galaxy (ULIRG) with log(LTIR/Lpdbl) = 12.24 that is undergoing a starburst with an estimated star formation rate of 179 ± 40 Mpdbl yr-1. These host galaxy properties are consistent with the physical conditions responsible for very bright OHM emission. Finally, we provide an update on the predicted number of OH masers that may be found in AWES and estimate the total number of OH masers that will be detected in each of the individual main and satellite OH 18 cm lines.
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