Building Models for Extended Radio Sources: Implications for Epoch of Reionisation Science

Copyright © Astronomical Society of Australia 2017. We test the hypothesis that limitations in the sky model used to calibrate an interferometric radio telescope, where the model contains extended radio sources, will generate bias in the Epoch of Reionisation power spectrum. The information containe...

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Main Authors: Trott, Cathryn, Wayth, Randall
Format: Journal Article
Published: Cambridge University Press 2017
Online Access:http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DE140100316
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/63070
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author Trott, Cathryn
Wayth, Randall
author_facet Trott, Cathryn
Wayth, Randall
author_sort Trott, Cathryn
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Copyright © Astronomical Society of Australia 2017. We test the hypothesis that limitations in the sky model used to calibrate an interferometric radio telescope, where the model contains extended radio sources, will generate bias in the Epoch of Reionisation power spectrum. The information contained in a calibration model about the spatial and spectral structure of an extended source is incomplete because a radio telescope cannot sample all Fourier components. Application of an incomplete sky model to calibration of Epoch of Reionisation data will imprint residual error in the data, which propagates forward to the Epoch of Reionisation power spectrum. This limited information is studied in the context of current and future planned instruments and surveys at Epoch of Reionisation frequencies, such as the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA), Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope and the Square Kilometre Array (SKA1-Low). For the MWA Epoch of Reionisation experiment, we find that both the additional short baseline uv-coverage of the compact Epoch of Reionisation array, and the additional long baselines provided by TGSS and planned MWA expansions, are required to obtain sufficient information on all relevant scales. For SKA1-Low, arrays with maximum baselines of 49 km and 65 km yield comparable performance at 50 MHz and 150 MHz, while 39 km, 14 km, and 4 km arrays yield degraded performance.
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-630702022-09-06T04:27:29Z Building Models for Extended Radio Sources: Implications for Epoch of Reionisation Science Trott, Cathryn Wayth, Randall Copyright © Astronomical Society of Australia 2017. We test the hypothesis that limitations in the sky model used to calibrate an interferometric radio telescope, where the model contains extended radio sources, will generate bias in the Epoch of Reionisation power spectrum. The information contained in a calibration model about the spatial and spectral structure of an extended source is incomplete because a radio telescope cannot sample all Fourier components. Application of an incomplete sky model to calibration of Epoch of Reionisation data will imprint residual error in the data, which propagates forward to the Epoch of Reionisation power spectrum. This limited information is studied in the context of current and future planned instruments and surveys at Epoch of Reionisation frequencies, such as the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA), Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope and the Square Kilometre Array (SKA1-Low). For the MWA Epoch of Reionisation experiment, we find that both the additional short baseline uv-coverage of the compact Epoch of Reionisation array, and the additional long baselines provided by TGSS and planned MWA expansions, are required to obtain sufficient information on all relevant scales. For SKA1-Low, arrays with maximum baselines of 49 km and 65 km yield comparable performance at 50 MHz and 150 MHz, while 39 km, 14 km, and 4 km arrays yield degraded performance. 2017 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/63070 10.1017/pasa.2017.57 http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DE140100316 Cambridge University Press restricted
spellingShingle Trott, Cathryn
Wayth, Randall
Building Models for Extended Radio Sources: Implications for Epoch of Reionisation Science
title Building Models for Extended Radio Sources: Implications for Epoch of Reionisation Science
title_full Building Models for Extended Radio Sources: Implications for Epoch of Reionisation Science
title_fullStr Building Models for Extended Radio Sources: Implications for Epoch of Reionisation Science
title_full_unstemmed Building Models for Extended Radio Sources: Implications for Epoch of Reionisation Science
title_short Building Models for Extended Radio Sources: Implications for Epoch of Reionisation Science
title_sort building models for extended radio sources: implications for epoch of reionisation science
url http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DE140100316
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/63070