The Murchison Widefield Array: The Square Kilometre Array Precursor at Low Radio Frequencies

Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia

S. J. Tingay¹ 

[1] R. Goeke

关键词: instrumentation: interferometers;    techniques: image processing;    techniques: interferometric — radio continuum: general;    radio lines: general;    early Universe;   

DOI  :  10.1017/pasa.2012.007

学科分类：天文学(综合)

来源: CSIRO

【 摘 要 】

The Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) is one of three Square Kilometre Array Precursor telescopes and is located at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory in the Murchison Shire of the mid-west of Western Australia, a location chosen for its extremely low levels of radio frequency interference. The MWA operates at low radio frequencies, 80–300 MHz, with a processed bandwidth of 30.72 MHz for both linear polarisations, and consists of 128 aperture arrays (known as tiles) distributed over a ~3-km diameter area. Novel hybrid hardware/software correlation and a real-time imaging and calibration systems comprise the MWA signal processing backend. In this paper, the as-built MWA is described both at a system and sub-system level, the expected performance of the array is presented, and the science goals of the instrument are summarised.

【 授权许可】

Unknown