The AARTFAAC All-Sky Monitor: System Design and Implementation

Journal of Astronomical Instrumentation

K. KUEHN¹  R. HUPE² 

[1] Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, IL 60439, USA;Department of Physics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA

关键词: Radio telescopes;    interferometry;    calibration;    imaging;    radio transients;    correlators;   

DOI  :  10.1142/S2251171716410087

学科分类：天文学(综合)

来源: World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.

【 摘 要 】

The Amsterdam–ASTRON Radio Transients Facility and Analysis Center (AARTFAAC) all-sky monitor is a sensitive, real-time transient detector based on the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR). It generates images of the low frequency radio sky with spatial resolution of tens of arcmin, MHz bandwidths, and a time cadence of a few seconds, while simultaneously but independently observing with LOFAR. The image timeseries is then monitored for short and bright radio transients. On detection of a transient, a low latency trigger will be generated for LOFAR, which can interrupt its schedule to carry out follow-up observations of the trigger location at high sensitivity and resolutions. In this paper, we describe our heterogeneous, hierarchical design to manage the 259Gbps raw data rate and large scale computing to produce real-time images with minimum latency. We discuss the implementation of the instrumentation, its performance and scalability.

【 授权许可】

Unknown