The High Time and Frequency Resolution Capabilities of the Murchison Widefield Array

Abstract

The science cases for incorporating high time resolution capabilities into modern radio telescopes are as numerous as they are compelling. Science targets range from exotic sources such as pulsars, to our Sun, to recently detected possible extragalactic bursts of radio emission, the so-called fast radio bursts (FRBs). Originally conceived purely as an imaging telescope, the initial design of the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) did not include the ability to access high time and frequency resolution voltage data. However, the flexibility of the MWA's software correlator allowed an off-the-shelf solution for adding this capability. This paper describes the system that records the 100 micro-second and 10 kHz resolution voltage data from the MWA. Example science applications, where this capability is critical, are presented, as well as accompanying commissioning results from this mode to demonstrate verification.

arXiv comment9 pages, 6 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in PASA

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Cited by in corpus (43)

• The Phase II Murchison Widefield Array: Design Overview
• Pulsar Observations Using the First Station of the Long Wavelength Array and the LWA Pulsar Data Archive
• Low Frequency Observations of the Subpulse Drifter PSR J0034-0721 with the Murchison Widefield Array
• A search for Fast Radio Bursts at low frequencies with Murchison Widefield Array high time resolution imaging
• Scintillation arcs in low-frequency observations of the timing-array millisecond pulsar J0437-4715
• Interplanetary Scintillation with the Murchison Widefield Array I: A sub-arcsecond Survey over 900 square degrees at 79 and 158 MHz
• Spectral Flattening at Low Frequencies in Crab Giant Pulses
• Constraining coherent low frequency radio flares from compact binary mergers
• Science with the Murchison Widefield Array: Phase I Results and Phase II Opportunities
• Surveillance of Space using Passive Radar and the Murchison Widefield Array
• An Opportunistic Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (SETI) with the Murchison Widefield Array
• A polarization census of bright pulsars using the Ultra-Wideband Receiver on the Parkes radio telescope
• The frequency-dependent behaviour of subpulse drifting: I. Carousel geometry and emission heights of PSR B0031-07
• Using negative-latency gravitational wave alerts to detect prompt radio bursts from binary neutron star mergers with the Murchison Widefield Array
• Observations of Low-Frequency Radio Emission from Millisecond Pulsars and Multipath Propagation in the Interstellar Medium
• A Census of Southern Pulsars at 185 MHz
• Pulsar revival in neutron star mergers: multi-messenger prospects for the discovery of pre-merger coherent radio emission
• Probing pulsar scattering between 120 and 280 MHz with the MWA
• Strategies for Finding Prompt Radio Counterparts to Gravitational Wave Transients with the Murchison Widefield Array
• Improved Techniques for the Surveillance of the Near Earth Space Environment with the Murchison Widefield Array
• A Serendipitous MWA Search for Narrow-band and Broad-band Low Frequency Radio Transmissions from 1I/2017 U1 'Oumuamua
• MWA Tied-Array Processing I: Calibration and Beamformation
• Murchison Widefield Array Observations of Anomalous Variability: A Serendipitous Night-time Detection of Interplanetary Scintillation
• A search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) toward the Galactic Anticenter with the Murchison Widefield Array
• Discovery of a steep-spectrum low-luminosity pulsar with the Murchison Widefield Array
• Establishing the Capabilities of the Murchison Widefield Array as a Passive Radar for the Surveillance of Space
• Hunting for radio emission from the intermittent pulsar J1107-5907 at low frequencies
• Simultaneous Observations of Giant Pulses from the Crab Pulsar, with the Murchison Widefield Array and Parkes Radio Telescope: Implications for the Giant Pulse Emission Mechanism
• Improved Sensitivity for Space Domain Awareness Observations with the Murchison Widefield Array
• A high time resolution study of the millisecond pulsar J2241-5236 at frequencies below 300 MHz
• Testing afterglow models of FRB 200428 with early post-burst observations of SGR 1935+2154
• Detection of frequency-dependent dispersion measure toward the millisecond pulsar PSR J2241-5236 from contemporaneous wide-band observations
• High time resolution search for prompt radio emission from the long GRB 210419A with the Murchison Widefield Array
• System equivalent flux density of a low-frequency polarimetric phased array interferometer
• A targeted search for repeating fast radio bursts with the MWA
• An Ultra-High Time Resolution Cosmic Ray Detection Mode for the Murchison Widefield Array
• Single-pulse analysis and average emission characteristics of PSR J1820-0427 from observations made with the MWA and uGMRT
• Testing the circularity of PSR B0818-41's carousel
• BLINK: an End-To-End GPU High Time Resolution Imaging Pipeline for Fast Radio Burst Searches with the Murchison Widefield Array
• A Search for Low-frequency Radio Pulses from Long Gamma-ray Bursts with the Murchison Widefield Array
• 50-250 MHz Pulsar Census with an SKA-Low prototype station: Spectra and Polarization
• Independent discovery of a nulling pulsar with unusual sub-pulse drifting properties with the Murchison Widefield Array
• Using low-frequency pulsar observations to study the 3-D structure of the Galactic magnetic field