Fourier domain excision of periodic radio frequency interference

Abstract

The discovery and study of pulsars and Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) in time-domain radio data is often hampered by radio frequency interference (RFI). Some of this terrestrial RFI is impulsive and bright, and relatively easy to identify and remove. Other anthropogenic signals, however, are weaker yet periodic, and their persistence can drown out astrophysical signals. Here we show that Fourier-domain excision of periodic RFI is an effective and powerful step in detecting weak cosmic signals. We find that applying the method significantly increases the signal-to-noise ratio of transient as well as periodic pulsar signals. In live studies, we detected single pulses from pulsars and FRBs that would otherwise have remained buried in background noise. We show the method has no negative effects on pulsar pulse shape and that it enhances timing campaigns. We demonstrate the method on real-life data from a number of large radio telescopes, and conclude that Fourier-domain RFI excision increases the effective sensitivity to astrophysical sources by a significant fraction which can be even larger than an order of magnitude in case of strong RFI. An accelerated implementation of the method runs on standard time-domain radio data formats and is publicly available.

9 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in A&A. The associated software is available at https://github.com/ymaan4/RFIClean

References in corpus (6)

• A bright millisecond radio burst of extragalactic origin
• PSRCHIVE and PSRFITS An Open Approach to Radio Pulsar Data Storage and Analysis
• An Interference Removal Technique for Radio Pulsar Searches
• The variable radio-to-X-ray spectrum of the magnetar XTE J1810-197
• Deep searches for decameter wavelength pulsed emission from radio-quiet gamma-ray pulsars
• PSR J0437-4715: The Argentine Institute of Radioastronomy 2019-2020 Observational Campaign

Cited by in corpus (23)

• Chromatic periodic activity down to 120 MHz in a Fast Radio Burst
• The Indian Pulsar Timing Array: First data release
• IQRM: real-time adaptive RFI masking for radio transient and pulsar searches
• Evidence for profile changes in PSR J1713+0747 using the uGMRT
• Nanohertz Gravitational Wave Astronomy during the SKA Era: An InPTA perspective
• High Precision Measurements of Interstellar Dispersion Measure with the upgraded GMRT
• Low-frequency wideband timing of InPTA pulsars observed with the uGMRT
• First results of the glitching pulsars monitoring program at the Argentine Institute of Radioastronomy
• Mitigating radio frequency interference in CHIME/FRB real-time intensity data
• Science Using Single-Pulse Exploration with Combined Telescopes. I. The mode switching, flaring, and single-pulse morphology of PSR B1822-09
• Categorize Radio Interference using component and temporal analysis
• The Indian Pulsar Timing Array Data Release 2: I. Dataset and Timing Analysis
• An activity transition in FRB 20201124A: methodological rigor, detection of frequency-dependent cessation, and a geometric magnetar model
• Multi-band Extension of the Wideband Timing Technique
• Vela Pulsar: Single Pulses Analysis with Machine Learning Techniques
• Low-frequency pulse-jitter measurement with the uGMRT I : PSR J0437$-$4715
• A Simultaneous Dual-Frequency Scintillation Arc Survey of Six Bright Canonical Pulsars Using the Upgraded Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope
• A direct measurement of the electron density turbulence parameter $C_1$ and implications for the emission size of the magnetar XTE J1810-197
• Study of the 2024 major Vela glitch at the Argentine Institute of Radioastronomy
• Improving DM estimates using low-frequency scattering-broadening estimates
• A deep search for radio pulsations from the 1.3 M${}_{\odot }$ compact-object binary companion of young pulsar PSR J1906+0746
• Investigating four new candidate redback pulsars discovered in the image plane
• Magnetar XTE J1810-197: Spectro-temporal evolution of average radio emission