Prowess - a software model for the Ooty Wide Field Array

Abstract

One of the scientific objectives of the Ooty Wide Field Array(OWFA) is to observe the redshifted HI emission from z ~ 3.35. Although predictions spell out optimistic outcomes in reasonable integration times, these studies were based purely on analytical assumptions, without accounting for limiting systematics. A software model for OWFA has been developed with a view to understanding the instrument-induced systematics, by describing a complete software model for the instrument. This model has been implemented through a suite of programs, together called Prowess, which has been conceived with a dual role of an emulator as well as observatory data analysis software. The programming philosophy followed in building Prowess enables any user to define an own set of functions and add new functionality. This paper describes a co-ordinate system suitable for OWFA in which the baselines are defined. The foregrounds are simulated from their angular power spectra. The visibilities are then computed from the foregrounds. These visibilities are then used for further processing, such as calibration and power spectrum estimation. The package allows for rich visualisation features in multiple output formats in an interactive fashion, giving the user an intuitive feel for the data. Prowess has been extensively used for numerical predictions of the foregrounds for the OWFA HI experiment.

To appear in the Special Section of the JAA on the Ooty Wide Field Array

References in corpus (10)

• On using visibility correlations to probe the HI distribution from the dark ages to the present epoch I: Formalism and the expected signal
• Foregrounds for redshifted 21 cm studies of reionization: GMRT 153 MHz observations
• The multi-frequency angular power spectrum of the epoch of reionization 21 cm signal
• Forecasts on the Dark Energy and Primordial Non-Gaussianity Observations with the Tianlai Cylinder Array
• Power spectrum of HI intensity fluctuations in DDO 210
• Visibility based angular power spectrum estimation in low frequency radio interferometric observations
• Galactic interstellar turbulence in the southern sky seen through spatial gradients of the polarization vector
• Prospects for detecting the 326.5 MHz redshifted 21 cm HI signal with the Ooty Radio Telescope (ORT)
• A High Speed Networked Signal Processing Platform for Multi-element Radio Telescopes
• Fisher matrix predictions for detecting the cosmological 21 cm signal with the Ooty Wide Field Array (OWFA)

Cited by in corpus (3)

• An analytical method to simulate the HI 21-cm visibility signal for intensity mapping experiments
• Simulated Predictions for HI at $z=3.35$ with the Ooty Wide Field Array (OWFA) -- II: Foreground Avoidance
• Constraining warm dark matter power spectrum using the cross-correlation of HI 21 cm signal and the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest