The FAST Ultra-Deep Survey (FUDS): observational strategy, calibration and data reduction

Abstract

The FAST Ultra-Deep Survey (FUDS) is a blind survey that aims for the direct detection of HI in galaxies at redshifts $z<0.42$. The survey uses the multibeam receiver on the Five Hundred Meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) to map six regions, each of size 0.72 deg${}^2$ at high sensitivity ($\sim 50\mu$Jy) and high frequency resolution (23 kHz). The survey will enable studies of the evolution of galaxies and their HI content with an eventual sample size of $\sim 1000$. We present the science goals, observing strategy, the effects of radio frequency interference (RFI) at the FAST site, our mitigation strategies and the methods for calibration, data reduction and imaging as applied to initial data. The observations and reductions for the first field, FUDS0, are completed, with around 128 HI galaxies detected in a preliminary analysis. Example spectra are given in this paper, including a comparison with data from the overlapping GAL2577 field of Arecibo Ultra-Deep Survey (AUDS).

17 pages, 19 figures, 6 tables, accepted for publication in PASA

References in corpus (13)

• The Five-Hundred-Meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) Project
• The VLA Low-frequency Sky Survey
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• The Arecibo Ultra-Deep Survey
• The HI mass function in the Parkes HI Zone of Avoidance survey
• The Ursa Major Association of Galaxies. VI: A relative dearth of gas-rich dwarf galaxies

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Deep Investigation of Neutral Gas Origins (DINGO): HI stacking experiments with early science data
• The most distant HI galaxies discovered by the 500 m dish FAST
• HI content of massive red spiral galaxies observed by FAST
• HiFAST : An HI Data Calibration and Imaging Pipeline for FAST II. Flux Density Calibration
• HiFAST: An HI Data Calibration and Imaging Pipeline for FAST III. Standing Wave Removal
• FAST Ultra-Deep Survey (FUDS): Data Release for FUDS0
• The FAST Hundred-Deg${}^2$ HI Deep (HD${}^2$) Survey: Early Results from the Pilot Survey