LWA1 is a new radio telescope operating in the frequency range 10-88 MHz, located in central New Mexico. The telescope consists of 258 pairs of dipole-type antennas whose outputs are individually digitized and formed into beams. Simultaneously, signals from all dipoles can be recorded using one of the instrument's "all dipoles" modes, facilitating all-sky imaging. Notable features of the instrument include high intrinsic sensitivity (about 6 kJy zenith system equivalent flux density), large instantaneous bandwidth (up to 78 MHz), and 4 independently-steerable beams utilizing digital "true time delay" beamforming. This paper summarizes the design of LWA1 and its performance as determined in commissioning experiments. We describe the method currently in use for array calibration, and report on measurements of sensitivity and beamwidth.
@article{arxiv.1204.4816,
title = {The LWA1 Radio Telescope},
author = {S. W. Ellingson and G. B. Taylor and J. Craig and J. Hartman and J. Dowell and C. N. Wolfe and T. E. Clarke and B. C. Hicks and N. E. Kassim and P. S. Ray and L. J. Rickard and F. K. Schinzel and K. W. Weiler},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1204.4816},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
9 pages, 14 figures, accepted by IEEE Trans. Antennas & Propagation. Various minor changes from previous version