The impact of tandem redundant/sky-based calibration in MWA Phase II data analysis

Precise instrumental calibration is of crucial importance to 21-cm cosmology experiments. The Murchison Widefield Array's (MWA) Phase II compact configuration offers us opportunities for both redundant calibration and sky-based calibration algorithms; using the two in tandem is a potential appr...

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Main Authors: Zhang, Z., Pober, J.C., Li, W., Hazelton, B.J., Morales, M.F., Trott, Cathryn, Jordan, Chris, Joseph, R.C., Beardsley, A., Barry, N., Byrne, R., Tingay, Steven, Chokshi, A., Hasegawa, K., Jacobs, D.C., Lanman, A., Line, Jack, Lynch, Christene, McKinley, Ben, Mitchell, D.A., Murray, Steven, Pindor, B., Rahimi, M., Takahashi, K., Wayth, Randall, Webster, R.L., Wilensky, M., Yoshiura, S., Zheng, Q.
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS 2020
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2009.09269
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/91571
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author Zhang, Z.
Pober, J.C.
Li, W.
Hazelton, B.J.
Morales, M.F.
Trott, Cathryn
Jordan, Chris
Joseph, R.C.
Beardsley, A.
Barry, N.
Byrne, R.
Tingay, Steven
Chokshi, A.
Hasegawa, K.
Jacobs, D.C.
Lanman, A.
Line, Jack
Lynch, Christene
McKinley, Ben
Mitchell, D.A.
Murray, Steven
Pindor, B.
Rahimi, M.
Takahashi, K.
Wayth, Randall
Webster, R.L.
Wilensky, M.
Yoshiura, S.
Zheng, Q.
author_facet Zhang, Z.
Pober, J.C.
Li, W.
Hazelton, B.J.
Morales, M.F.
Trott, Cathryn
Jordan, Chris
Joseph, R.C.
Beardsley, A.
Barry, N.
Byrne, R.
Tingay, Steven
Chokshi, A.
Hasegawa, K.
Jacobs, D.C.
Lanman, A.
Line, Jack
Lynch, Christene
McKinley, Ben
Mitchell, D.A.
Murray, Steven
Pindor, B.
Rahimi, M.
Takahashi, K.
Wayth, Randall
Webster, R.L.
Wilensky, M.
Yoshiura, S.
Zheng, Q.
author_sort Zhang, Z.
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Precise instrumental calibration is of crucial importance to 21-cm cosmology experiments. The Murchison Widefield Array's (MWA) Phase II compact configuration offers us opportunities for both redundant calibration and sky-based calibration algorithms; using the two in tandem is a potential approach to mitigate calibration errors caused by inaccurate sky models. The MWA Epoch of Reionization (EoR) experiment targets three patches of the sky (dubbed EoR0, EoR1, and EoR2) with deep observations. Previous work in Li et al. (2018) and (2019) studied the effect of tandem calibration on the EoR0 field and found that it yielded no significant improvement in the power spectrum (PS) over sky-based calibration alone. In this work, we apply similar techniques to the EoR1 field and find a distinct result: The improvements in the PS from tandem calibration are significant. To understand this result, we analyse both the calibration solutions themselves and the effects on the PS over three nights of EoR1 observations. We conclude that the presence of the bright radio galaxy Fornax A in EoR1 degrades the performance of sky-based calibration, which in turn enables redundant calibration to have a larger impact. These results suggest that redundant calibration can indeed mitigate some level of model incompleteness error.
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-915712023-05-16T05:09:35Z The impact of tandem redundant/sky-based calibration in MWA Phase II data analysis Zhang, Z. Pober, J.C. Li, W. Hazelton, B.J. Morales, M.F. Trott, Cathryn Jordan, Chris Joseph, R.C. Beardsley, A. Barry, N. Byrne, R. Tingay, Steven Chokshi, A. Hasegawa, K. Jacobs, D.C. Lanman, A. Line, Jack Lynch, Christene McKinley, Ben Mitchell, D.A. Murray, Steven Pindor, B. Rahimi, M. Takahashi, K. Wayth, Randall Webster, R.L. Wilensky, M. Yoshiura, S. Zheng, Q. Science & Technology Physical Sciences Astronomy & Astrophysics instrumentation interferometers methods data analysis cosmology observations dark ages reionisation first stars LINE CALIBRATION EPOCH ARRAY astro-ph.IM astro-ph.IM Precise instrumental calibration is of crucial importance to 21-cm cosmology experiments. The Murchison Widefield Array's (MWA) Phase II compact configuration offers us opportunities for both redundant calibration and sky-based calibration algorithms; using the two in tandem is a potential approach to mitigate calibration errors caused by inaccurate sky models. The MWA Epoch of Reionization (EoR) experiment targets three patches of the sky (dubbed EoR0, EoR1, and EoR2) with deep observations. Previous work in Li et al. (2018) and (2019) studied the effect of tandem calibration on the EoR0 field and found that it yielded no significant improvement in the power spectrum (PS) over sky-based calibration alone. In this work, we apply similar techniques to the EoR1 field and find a distinct result: The improvements in the PS from tandem calibration are significant. To understand this result, we analyse both the calibration solutions themselves and the effects on the PS over three nights of EoR1 observations. We conclude that the presence of the bright radio galaxy Fornax A in EoR1 degrades the performance of sky-based calibration, which in turn enables redundant calibration to have a larger impact. These results suggest that redundant calibration can indeed mitigate some level of model incompleteness error. 2020 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/91571 10.1017/pasa.2020.37 English https://arxiv.org/abs/2009.09269 http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/CE170100013 http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/FT180100321 http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/LE160100031 CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS restricted
spellingShingle Science & Technology
Physical Sciences
Astronomy & Astrophysics
instrumentation
interferometers
methods
data analysis
cosmology
observations
dark ages
reionisation
first stars
LINE CALIBRATION
EPOCH
ARRAY
astro-ph.IM
astro-ph.IM
Zhang, Z.
Pober, J.C.
Li, W.
Hazelton, B.J.
Morales, M.F.
Trott, Cathryn
Jordan, Chris
Joseph, R.C.
Beardsley, A.
Barry, N.
Byrne, R.
Tingay, Steven
Chokshi, A.
Hasegawa, K.
Jacobs, D.C.
Lanman, A.
Line, Jack
Lynch, Christene
McKinley, Ben
Mitchell, D.A.
Murray, Steven
Pindor, B.
Rahimi, M.
Takahashi, K.
Wayth, Randall
Webster, R.L.
Wilensky, M.
Yoshiura, S.
Zheng, Q.
The impact of tandem redundant/sky-based calibration in MWA Phase II data analysis
title The impact of tandem redundant/sky-based calibration in MWA Phase II data analysis
title_full The impact of tandem redundant/sky-based calibration in MWA Phase II data analysis
title_fullStr The impact of tandem redundant/sky-based calibration in MWA Phase II data analysis
title_full_unstemmed The impact of tandem redundant/sky-based calibration in MWA Phase II data analysis
title_short The impact of tandem redundant/sky-based calibration in MWA Phase II data analysis
title_sort impact of tandem redundant/sky-based calibration in mwa phase ii data analysis
topic Science & Technology
Physical Sciences
Astronomy & Astrophysics
instrumentation
interferometers
methods
data analysis
cosmology
observations
dark ages
reionisation
first stars
LINE CALIBRATION
EPOCH
ARRAY
astro-ph.IM
astro-ph.IM
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2009.09269
https://arxiv.org/abs/2009.09269
https://arxiv.org/abs/2009.09269
https://arxiv.org/abs/2009.09269
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/91571