AARTFAAC Flux Density Calibration and Northern Hemisphere Catalogue at 60 MHz

Abstract

We present a method for calibrating the flux density scale for images generated by the Amsterdam ASTRON Radio Transient Facility And Analysis Centre (AARTFAAC). AARTFAAC produces a stream of all-sky images at a rate of one second in order to survey the Northern Hemisphere for short duration, low frequency transients, such as the prompt EM counterpart to gravitational wave events, magnetar flares, blazars, and other as of yet unobserved phenomena. Therefore, an independent flux density scaling solution per image is calculated via bootstrapping, comparing the measured apparent brightness of sources in the field to a reference catalogue. However, the lack of accurate flux density measurements of bright sources below 74 MHz necessitated the creation of the AARTFAAC source catalogue, at 60 MHz, which contains 167 sources across the Northern Hemisphere. Using this as a reference results in a sufficiently high number of detected sources in each image to calculate a stable and accurate flux scale per one second snapshot, in real-time.

arXiv commentAccepted by MNRAS, 25 pages, 14 figures

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Cited by in corpus (12)

• The AARTFAAC Cosmic Explorer: observations of the 21-cm power spectrum in the EDGES absorption trough
• Constraining coherent low frequency radio flares from compact binary mergers
• MKT J170456.2-482100: the first transient discovered by MeerKAT
• Long-term study of extreme giant pulses from PSR B0950+08 with AARTFAAC
• Pushing subarcsecond resolution imaging down to 30 MHz with the trans-European International LOFAR Telescope
• Degree-Scale Galactic Radio Emission at 122 MHz around the North Celestial Pole with LOFAR-AARTFAAC
• Transient RFI environment of LOFAR-LBA at 72-75 MHz: Impact on ultra-widefield AARTFAAC Cosmic Explorer observations of the redshifted 21-cm signal
• The AARTFAAC 60 MHz transients survey
• Apparent radio transients mapping the near-Earth plasma environment
• Characterization of the AARTFAAC-12 aperture array: radio source counts at 42 and 61 MHz
• The Energetics of the Central Engine in the Powerful Quasar, 3C298
• LOFAR 58 MHz Legacy Survey of the 3CRR Catalog