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Status of LOFAR Beam-Formed Observations

Status of LOFAR Beam-Formed Observations

Jason Hessels
LOFAR Transients Key Project Meeting, Meudon, December 2011

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June 23, 2012
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  1. Jason Hessels (ASTRON / UvA) The Latest on Beam-Formed Data

    with LOFAR +LOFAR Pulsar Working Group TKP - Meudon - December 15th, 2011
  2. Roughly speaking, beam-formed modes trade spatial resolution for time resolution.

    Station Beam Element Beam Tied-array Beams Beam-formed: adding, us-ms, many telescopes Imaging: multiplying, >1 sec, ~1 telescope TKP - Meudon - December 15th, 2011
  3. Credit: Hessels & Greissmeier Full core on single clock =

    4x the raw sensitivity TKP - Meudon - December 15th, 2011
  4. See Mol & Romein 2011 for multi-beam tied-array benchmarking results

    Credit: Hessels, Stappers & Scaife TKP - Meudon - December 15th, 2011
  5. Element beam Stations beam(s) Tied-array beam(s) Flexible Beam-forming (sparse aperture

    array) This is driving the development of beam-formed modes, of which tens of different sub-modes are possible Credit: van Leeuwen TKP - Meudon - December 15th, 2011
  6. Beam-formed modes ...there are many possible. Mode Description Data Rate

    FoV (sq. deg.) Res. (deg.) Sens. (norm.) Incoherent (par. imaging) Stations added without proper phase correction. 2-250 GB/hr 12,5 2 6,0 Tied-array Stations added properly in phase. Up to 23TB/hr 0,2 0,03 36,0 Single Station For projects with high time, but lower sensitivity requirements. 2-250 GB/hr 12,5 2 1,0 Superstation Interesting balance of sensitivity and FoV. Up to 23TB/hr 9,0 0,2 12,0 Fly’s Eye Maximize total FoV for bright transient survey. Up to 8TB/hr 450 2 1,0 Flexible to match different science goals! TKP - Meudon - December 15th, 2011
  7. LOFAR v1.0: Beam-Formed Modes Coherent Stokes Incoherent Stokes Beam-Formed Observation

    I IQUV XXYY I IQUV (+ imaging) Online coherent dedispersion 1, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256 channels per subband 5us - 10ms (or more) time res. 1-300 TABs 1-8 SAPs 1-8 SAPs All written to HDF5 with metadata (+) TKP - Meudon - December 15th, 2011
  8. LOFAR Pilot Pulsar Survey (LPPS) • Incoherent beams - all

    avail. (~20) stations • 7 beams of 7 MHz each and 0.65ms samp. • 57 minutes per pointing (82GB) • ~167 sq. deg. total FoV per pointing • ~250 pointings taken during Christmas 2010 • Data being processed on “Hydra” at the University of Manchester. TKP - Meudon - December 15th, 2011
  9. Only ~400 7-beam pointings > -35 deg DEC LOFAR Pilot

    Pulsar Survey (LPPS) TKP - Meudon - December 15th, 2011
  10. high resolution images; while in beam) formed mode the data

    is stored at high time resolution( but with limited spatial information' probes the interstellar material and magnetic fields( and can be used to map the Galactic free)electron distribution' Neutron stars provide constraints on stellar evolution models and supernovae' radio pulsar population( out to % kpc *#+' LOFAR will also elucidate the unknown low frequency end of the pulsar spectrum' For more information see *%+' This work: LPPS We are currently performing a first shallow survey of the northern sky: the LOFAR Pilot Pulsar Survey !LPPS"' All available LOFAR stations are used and Transients !RRAT"( and single dispersed bursts from general fast radio transients' The LPPS survey is currently underway interference can be identified by its absence of dispersion measure !i'e' no free electrons along the line of sight"( unnatural brightness( occurrence in RFI !DM " # cm$% pc& Re$detection J'())*')+) Re$detection J'(,%*#++# Re$detection J'()'*#-', Beam $ LPPS pointings contains . beams Beam # Beam % Beam / Beam & Beam . Beam - Courtesy: Thijs Coenen LOFAR Pilot Pulsar Survey (LPPS) TKP - Meudon - December 15th, 2011
  11. LOFAR Tied-Array Survey (LOTAS) • Tied-array (coherent) beams (Superterp) •

    19 beams with full 48MHz and 1.3ms samp. • 17 minutes per pointing (246GB) • ~3.7 sq. deg. FoV per pointing • ~200 pointings taken from May 11-15th • Increase in sensitivity ~10 x LPPS • Less affected by RFI? TKP - Meudon - December 15th, 2011
  12. See Mol & Romein 2011 for multi-beam tied-array benchmarking results

    Credit: Hessels, Stappers & Scaife TKP - Meudon - December 15th, 2011
  13. Pulsar is 10x brighter in the correct beam (beam 7)!

    Shifted 1 deg south Credit: Alexov & Hessels LOFAR 127-beam Tied-Array!! TKP - Meudon - December 15th, 2011
  14. LOFAR 127-beam Tied-Array!! Credit: Hessels & Alexov S/N in each

    beam Linear Scaling Log Scaling Full core requires 4500 TABs TKP - Meudon - December 15th, 2011
  15. Timing Observations Credit: Verbiest From 20 3-min observations of B0834+06,

    each spaced by 10 minutes TKP - Meudon - December 15th, 2011
  16. Measuring Earth’s Ionosphere Credit: Sobey Plan to do for multiple

    pulsars simultaneously PSR B0834+06 TKP - Meudon - December 15th, 2011
  17. Measuring Earth’s Ionosphere Credit: Sobey Plan to do for multiple

    pulsars simultaneously 35 40 45 Altitude [deg] 140 160 180 200 Azimuth [deg] SOUTH 04:00 05:00 06:00 07:00 UT [hh:mm] -29 -28 -27 -26 RM [rad m-2] SR SR TC TC TN TN TA TA d azimuth of B0834+06 (red circles), as well as the RM as a function of time, before and after ’zapping’ (blue circles and gree onomical,Nautical,Civil], SR = Sunrise. The RM before and after sunset differs by >3 rad m−2. PSR B0834+06 TKP - Meudon - December 15th, 2011
  18. Measuring Earth’s Ionosphere Credit: U. Bern Plan to do for

    multiple pulsars simultaneously and for 24hrs Table 2: Ionospheric TEC measurements for the globe on 20th October 2011. Credit: Universit¨ at Bern. 04:00 UT 06:00 UT 08:00 UT 3 Oct. 20th, 2011 TKP - Meudon - December 15th, 2011
  19. Low-Frequency Polarimetry Credit: Sobey Close to the only pulsar polarimetry

    at < 100MHz PSR HBA profile LBA profile FDFHBA FDFLBA B0950+08: DMpc = 2.958 RMpc = -0.66 DM = 2.958 DM = 2.987 RM = -3.35 RM = -2.386 33+16: DMpc = 4.864 RMpc = 1.1 TKP - Meudon - December 15th, 2011
  20. PSR B0809+74 detected all the way down to 16MHz! 15

    - 63 MHz Observing Frequency 20m Superterp stations in sync to ~1ns (single clock for the entire core is on the way) TKP - Meudon - December 15th, 2011
  21. Fitting Pulse Profile Evolution • Two Gaussians with frequency dependent

    amplitudes, widths, and separation. B0809+74 • Simultaneous, so no DM variation. LOFAR bands • Nice demonstration of sub- arraying and single-station use. Hassall et al., submitted TKP - Meudon - December 15th, 2011
  22. Recent LBA Pulsar Observations Large, intrinsic (and extrinsic) profile evolution

    across band 30-36 MHz 36-42 MHz 42-48 MHz 48-54 MHz 54-60 MHz 60-66 MHz 66-72 MHz 72-78 MHz (post station calibration) Credit: Stappers & Hassall TKP - Meudon - December 15th, 2011
  23. LOFARv1.1 • Simultaneous Obs. • Direct link between data and

    dspsr (offline tool) • True Fly’s Eye mode • Online RFI excision TKP - Meudon - December 15th, 2011