Observing the Sun with the Murchison Widefield Array

Abstract

The Sun has remained a difficult source to image for radio telescopes, especially at the low radio frequencies. Its morphologically complex emission features span a large range of angular scales and the emission mechanisms involved, span a wide range in brightness temperatures. In addition, time and frequency synthesis, the key tool used by most radio interferometers to build up information about the source being imaged is not effective for solar imaging, because many of the features of interest are short lived and change dramatically over small fractional bandwidths. Building on the advances in radio frequency technology, digital signal processing and computing, the kind of instruments need..