Subtraction of bright point sources from synthesis images of the epoch of reionization

B Pindor; JSB Wyithe; DA Mitchell; SM Ord; RB Wayth; LJ Greenhill

Journal article

Subtraction of bright point sources from synthesis images of the epoch of reionization

B Pindor, JSB Wyithe, DA Mitchell, SM Ord, RB Wayth, LJ Greenhill

Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia | Published : 2011

DOI: 10.1071/AS10023

Abstract

Bright point sources associated with extragalactic active galactic nuclei and radio galaxies are an important foreground for low-frequency radio experiments aimed at detecting the redshifted 21-cm emission from neutral hydrogen during the epoch of reionization. The frequency dependence of the synthesized beam implies that the sidelobes of these sources will move across the field of view as a function of observing frequency, hence frustrating line-of-sight foreground subtraction techniques. We describe a method for subtracting these point sources from dirty maps produced by an instrument such as the MWA. This technique combines matched filters with an iterative centroiding scheme to locate an..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Stuart Wyithe Author

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Grants

Awarded by Australian Research Council

Funding Acknowledgements

We thank Gianni Bernardi for helpful comments during the preparation of this work. We also thank the anonymous referee for a constructive report. We acknowledge the support of the Australian Research Council through grants LE0775621, LE0882938 and DP0877954, the U.S. National Science Foundation through grant AST-0457585 and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.