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Register a new userThe CARMA Paired Antenna Calibration System: Atmospheric Phase Correction for Millimeter Wave Interferometry and its Application to Mapping the Ultraluminous Galaxy Arp 193
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Phase fluctuations introduced by the atmosphere are the main limiting factor in attaining diffraction limited performance in extended interferometric arrays at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths. We report the results of C-PACS, the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-Wave Astronomy Paired Antenna Calibration System. We present a systematic study of several hundred test observations taken during the 2009-2010 winter observing season where we utilize CARMAs eight 3.5-m antennas to monitor an atmospheric calibrator while simultaneously acquiring science observations with 6.1-m and 10.4-m antennas on baselines ranging from a few hundred meters to ~2 km. We find that C-PACS is systematically successful at improving coherence on long baselines under a variety of atmospheric conditions. We find that the angular separation between the atmospheric calibrator and target source is the most important consideration, with consistently successful phase correction at CARMA requiring a suitable calibrator located $lesssim$6$^circ$ away from the science target. We show that cloud cover does not affect the success of C-PACS. We demonstrate C-PACS in typical use by applying it to the observations of the nearby very luminous infrared galaxy Arp 193 in $^{12}$CO(2-1) at a linear resolution of ~70 pc (0.12 x 0.18), 3 times better than previously published molecular maps of this galaxy. We resolve the molecular disk rotation kinematics and the molecular gas distribution and measure the gas surface densities and masses on 90 pc scales. We find that molecular gas constitutes $sim30%$ of the dynamical mass in the inner 700 pc of this object with a surface density $sim10^4 M_odot$ pc$^{-2}$; we compare these properties to those of the starburst region of NGC 253.
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This is the third installment in a series of papers in which we investigate calibration artefacts. Calibration artefacts (also known as ghosts or spurious sources) are created when we calibrate with an incomplete model. In the first two papers of this series we developed a mathematical framework which enabled us to study the ghosting mechanism itself. An interesting concomitant of the second paper was that ghosts appear in symmetrical pairs. This could possibly account for spurious symmetrization. Spurious symmetrization refers to the appearance of a spurious source (the anti-ghost) symmetrically opposite an unmodelled source around a modelled source. The analysis in the first two papers indicates that the anti-ghost is usually very faint, in particular when a large number of antennas are used. This suggests that spurious symmetrization will mainly occur at an almost undetectable flux level. In this paper, we show that phase-only calibration produces an anti-ghost that is $N$-times (where $N$ denotes the number of antennas in the array) as bright as the one produced by phase and amplitude calibration and that this already bright ghost can be further amplified by the primary beam correction.
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In order to allow for a comparison with the measurements from other antenna systems, the voltage power spectral density measured by the Radio and Plasma waves receiver (RPW) on board Solar Orbiter needs to be converted into physical quantities that depend on the intrinsic properties of the radiation itself.The main goal of this study is to perform a calibration of the RPW dipole antenna system that allows for the conversion of the voltage power spectral density measured at the receivers input into the incoming flux density. We used space observations from the Thermal Noise Receiver (TNR) and the High Frequency Receiver (HFR) to perform the calibration of the RPW dipole antenna system. Observations of type III bursts by the Wind spacecraft are used to obtain a reference radio flux density for cross-calibrating the RPW dipole antennas. The analysis of a large sample of HFR observations (over about ten months), carried out jointly with an analysis of TNR-HFR data and prior to the antennas deployment, allowed us to estimate the reference system noise of the TNR-HFR receivers. We obtained the effective length of the RPW dipoles and the reference system noise of TNR-HFR in space, where the antennas and pre-amplifiers are embedded in the solar wind plasma. The obtained $l_{eff}$ values are in agreement with the simulation and measurements performed on the ground. By investigating the radio flux intensities of 35 type III bursts simultaneously observed by Solar Orbiter and Wind, we found that while the scaling of the decay time as a function of the frequency is the same for the Waves and RPW instruments, their median values are higher for the former. This provides the first observational evidence that Type III radio waves still undergo density scattering, even when they propagate from the source, in a medium with a plasma frequency that is well below their own emission frequency.
Lunar laser ranging provides a number of leading experimental tests of gravitation -- important in our quest to unify General Relativity and the Standard Model of physics. The Apache Point Observatory Lunar Laser-ranging Operation (APOLLO) has for years achieved median range precision at the ~2 mm level. Yet residuals in model-measurement comparisons are an order-of-magnitude larger, raising the question of whether the ranging data are not nearly as accurate as they are precise, or if the models are incomplete or ill-conditioned. This paper describes a new absolute calibration system (ACS) intended both as a tool for exposing and eliminating sources of systematic error, and also as a means to directly calibrate ranging data in-situ. The system consists of a high-repetition-rate (80 MHz) laser emitting short (< 10 ps) pulses that are locked to a cesium clock. In essence, the ACS delivers photons to the APOLLO detector at exquisitely well-defined time intervals as a truth input against which APOLLOs timing performance may be judged and corrected. Preliminary analysis indicates no inaccuracies in APOLLO data beyond the ~3 mm level, suggesting that historical APOLLO data are of high quality and motivating continued work on model capabilities. The ACS provides the means to deliver APOLLO data both accurate and precise below the 2 mm level.
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