MITEoR: A Scalable Interferometer for Precision 21 cm Cosmology

Abstract

We report on the MIT Epoch of Reionization (MITEoR) experiment, a pathfinder low-frequency radio interferometer whose goal is to test technologies that improve the calibration precision and reduce the cost of the high-sensitivity 3D mapping required for 21 cm cosmology. MITEoR accomplishes this by using massive baseline redundancy, which enables both automated precision calibration and correlator cost reduction. We demonstrate and quantify the power and robustness of redundancy for scalability and precision. We find that the calibration parameters precisely describe the effect of the instrument upon our measurements, allowing us to form a model that is consistent with ${\chi }^2$ per degree of freedom < 1.2 for as much as 80% of the observations. We use these results to develop an optimal estimator of calibration parameters using Wiener filtering, and explore the question of how often and how finely in frequency visibilities must be reliably measured to solve for calibration coefficients. The success of MITEoR with its 64 dual-polarization elements bodes well for the more ambitious Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) project and other next-generation instruments, which would incorporate many identical or similar technologies.

22 pages, 20 figures. Updated to match the accepted version for MNRAS. Supersedes arXiv:1309.2639. Movies, data and links at http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/omniscope.html

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• Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA)
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• PAPER-64 Constraints on Reionization: The 21cm Power Spectrum at z=8.4
• The Phase II Murchison Widefield Array: Design Overview
• Data Analysis for Precision 21 cm Cosmology
• First Results from HERA Phase I: Upper Limits on the Epoch of Reionization 21 cm Power Spectrum
• Calibration Requirements for Detecting the 21 cm Epoch of Reionization Power Spectrum and Implications for the SKA
• Improved Constraints on the 21 cm EoR Power Spectrum and the X-Ray Heating of the IGM with HERA Phase I Observations
• A simplified, lossless re-analysis of PAPER-64
• The Impact of Modeling Errors on Interferometer Calibration for 21 cm Power Spectra
• Systematic biases in low frequency radio interferometric data due to calibration: the LOFAR EoR case
• First Limits on the 21 cm Power Spectrum during the Epoch of X-ray heating
• First Season MWA Phase II EoR Power Spectrum Results at Redshift 7
• The Importance of Wide-field Foreground Removal for 21 cm Cosmology: A Demonstration With Early MWA Epoch of Reionization Observations
• PAPER-64 Constraints On Reionization II: The Temperature Of The z=8.4 Intergalactic Medium
• Multi-redshift limits on the 21cm power spectrum from PAPER
• Effects of Antenna Beam Chromaticity on Redshifted 21~cm Power Spectrum and Implications for Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array
• Mitigating Internal Instrument Coupling for 21 cm Cosmology I: Temporal and Spectral Modeling in Simulations
• Redundant Array Configurations for 21 cm Cosmology
• Mitigating the Effects of Antenna-to-Antenna Variation on Redundant-Baseline Calibration for 21 cm Cosmology
• The Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array Dish I: Beam Pattern Measurements and Science Implications
• Redundant-Baseline Calibration of the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array
• Comparing Redundant and Sky Model Based Interferometric Calibration: A First Look with Phase II of the MWA
• Optimizing Sparse RFI Prediction using Deep Learning
• A fresh look into the interacting dark matter scenario
• Measuring Phased-Array Antenna Beampatterns with High Dynamic Range for the Murchison Widefield Array using 137 MHz ORBCOMM Satellites
• Spherical Harmonic Analyses of Intensity Mapping Power Spectra
• Mapmaking for Precision 21 cm Cosmology
• Absolute Calibration Strategies for the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array and Their Impact on the 21 cm Power Spectrum
• Polarized Redundant-Baseline Calibration for 21 cm Cosmology Without Adding Spectral Structure
• Optimized Beam Sculpting with Generalized Fringe-Rate Filters
• The Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array Dish II: Characterization of Spectral Structure with Electromagnetic Simulations and its science Implications
• The Bias and Uncertainty of Redundant and Sky-Based Calibration under Realistic Sky and Telescope Conditions
• Improved 21 cm Epoch Of Reionization Power Spectrum Measurements with a Hybrid Foreground Subtraction and Avoidance Technique
• A Unified Calibration Framework for 21 cm Cosmology
• Science with the Murchison Widefield Array: Phase I Results and Phase II Opportunities
• Constraints on the temperature of the intergalactic medium at z=8.4 with 21-cm observations
• Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) Phase II Deployment and Commissioning
• Array Element Coupling in Radio Interferometry I: A Semi-Analytic Approach
• Brute-Force Mapmaking with Compact Interferometers: A MITEoR Northern Sky Map from 128 MHz to 175 MHz
• New EoR Power Spectrum Limits From MWA Phase II Using the Delay Spectrum Method and Novel Systematic Rejection
• Detecting Cosmic Reionization using Bi-Spectrum Phase
• Detection of Cosmic Structures using the Bispectrum Phase. II. First Results from Application to Cosmic Reionization Using the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array
• A Bayesian analysis of redshifted 21-cm HI signal and foregrounds: Simulations for LOFAR
• The Impact of Beam Variations on Power Spectrum Estimation for 21-cm Cosmology I: Simulations of Foreground Contamination for HERA
• A Generic and Efficient E-field Parallel Imaging Correlator for Next-Generation Radio Telescopes
• Beamforming Errors in Murchison Widefield Array Phased Array Antennas and their effects on Epoch of Reionization Science
• On the use of temporal filtering for mitigating galactic synchrotron calibration bias in 21 cm reionization observations
• An Efficient Feedback Calibration Algorithm for Direct Imaging Radio Telescopes
• SKA-Low Intensity Mapping Pathfinder Updates: Deeper 21 cm Power Spectrum Limits from Improved Analysis Frameworks
• Redundant interferometric calibration as a complex optimization problem
• Optimization and Commissioning of the EPIC Commensal Radio Transient Imager for the Long Wavelength Array
• A Spherical Harmonic Analysis of the Ooty Wide Field Array (OWFA) Visibility Signal
• Pre-selection of the Candidate Fields for Deep Imaging of the Epoch of Reionization with SKA1-Low
• Calibration Schemes with $\mathcal{O}(N\log N)$ Scaling for Large-N Radio Interferometers Built on a Regular Grid
• Exploring One-point Statistics in HERA Phase I Data: Effects of Foregrounds and Systematics on Measuring One-Point Statistics
• Removing systematics-induced 21-cm foreground residuals by cross-correlating filtered data
• Generalized Redundant Calibration of Radio Interferometers
• The Correlation Calibration of PAPER-64 data
• It's Always Darkest Before the Cosmic Dawn: Early Results from Novel Tools and Telescopes for 21 cm Cosmology