Journal article
Assessment of Ionospheric Activity Tolerances for Epoch of Reionization Science with the Murchison Widefield Array
CM Trott, CH Jordan, SG Murray, B Pindor, DA Mitchell, RB Wayth, J Line, B McKinley, A Beardsley, J Bowman, F Briggs, BJ Hazelton, J Hewitt, D Jacobs, MF Morales, JC Pober, S Sethi, U Shankar, R Subrahmanyan, M Tegmark Show all
Astrophysical Journal | IOP PUBLISHING LTD | Published : 2018
Abstract
Structure imprinted in foreground extragalactic point sources by ionospheric refraction has the potential to contaminate Epoch of Reionization (EoR) power spectra of the 21 cm emission line of neutral hydrogen. The alteration of the spatial and spectral structure of foreground measurements due to total electron content gradients in the ionosphere creates a departure from the expected sky signal. We present a general framework for understanding the signatures of ionospheric behavior in the 2D neutral hydrogen power spectrum measured by a low-frequency radio interferometer. Two primary classes of ionospheric behavior are considered, corresponding to dominant modes observed in Murchison Widefie..
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Awarded by Australian Government
Funding Acknowledgements
We thank the anonymous referee for a careful reading of the paper, useful comments, and correction of errors, which have all improved the manuscript substantially. This research was supported by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D), through project No. CE170100013. The International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) is a Joint Venture of Curtin University and The University of Western Australia, funded by the Western Australian State government. This scientific work makes use of the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory, operated by CSIRO. We acknowledge the Wajarri Yamatji people as the traditional owners of the Observatory site. Support for the operation of the MWA is provided by the Australian Government (NCRIS), under a contract to Curtin University administered by Astronomy Australia Limited. We acknowledge the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre, which is supported by the Western Australian and Australian Governments. C.M.T. is supported by an ARC Future Fellowship under grant FT180100196.