The U.S. Virtual Astronomical Observatory was a software infrastructure and development project designed both to begin the establishment of an operational Virtual Observatory (VO) and to provide the U.S. coordination with the international VO effort.
The concept of the VO is to provide the means by which an astronomer is able to discover, access, and process data seamlessly, regardless of its physical location. This paper describes the origins of the VAO, including the predecessor efforts within the U.S. National Virtual Observatory, and summarizes its main accomplishments. These accomplishments include the development of both scripting toolkits that allow scientists to incorporate VO data directly into their reduction and analysis environments and high-level science applications for data discovery, integration, analysis, and catalog cross-comparison. Working with the international community, and based on the experience from the software development, the VAO was a major contributor to international standards within the International Virtual Observatory Alliance. The VAO also demonstrated how an operational virtual observatory could be deployed, providing a robust operational environment in which VO services worldwide were routinely checked for aliveness and compliance with international standards. Finally, the VAO engaged in community outreach, developing a comprehensive web site with on-line tutorials, announcements, links to both U.S. and internationally developed tools and services, and exhibits and hands-on training .... All digital products of the VAO Project, including software, documentation, and tutorials, are stored in a repository for community access. The enduring legacy of the VAO is an increasing expectation that new telescopes and facilities incorporate VO capabilities during the design of their data management systems.
A community meeting on the topic of Radio Astronomy in the LSST Era was hosted by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Charlottesville, VA (2013 May 6--8). The focus of the workshop was on time domain radio astronomy and sky surveys. For the t
ime domain, the extent to which radio and visible wavelength observations are required to understand several classes of transients was stressed, but there are also classes of radio transients for which no visible wavelength counterpart is yet known, providing an opportunity for discovery. From the LSST perspective, the LSST is expected to generate as many as 1 million alerts nightly, which will require even more selective specification and identification of the classes and characteristics of transients that can warrant follow up, at radio or any wavelength. The LSST will also conduct a deep survey of the sky, producing a catalog expected to contain over 38 billion objects in it. Deep radio wavelength sky surveys will also be conducted on a comparable time scale, and radio and visible wavelength observations are part of the multi-wavelength approach needed to classify and understand these objects. Radio wavelengths are valuable because they are unaffected by dust obscuration and, for galaxies, contain contributions both from star formation and from active galactic nuclei. The workshop touched on several other topics, on which there was consensus including the placement of other LSST Deep Drilling Fields, inter-operability of software tools, and the challenge of filtering and exploiting the LSST data stream. There were also topics for which there was insufficient time for full discussion or for which no consensus was reached, which included the procedures for following up on LSST observations and the nature for future support of researchers desiring to use LSST data products.
This paper presents a search for radio transients at a frequency of 73.8 MHz (4 m wavelength) using the all-sky imaging capabilities of the Long Wavelength Demonstrator Array (LWDA). The LWDA was a 16-dipole phased array telescope, located on the sit
e of the Very Large Array in New Mexico. The field of view of the individual dipoles was essentially the entire sky, and the number of dipoles was sufficiently small that a simple software correlator could be used to make all-sky images. From 2006 October to 2007 February, we conducted an all-sky transient search program, acquiring a total of 106 hr of data; the time sampling varied, being 5 minutes at the start of the program and improving to 2 minutes by the end of the program. We were able to detect solar flares, and in a special-purpose mode, radio reflections from ionized meteor trails during the 2006 Leonid meteor shower. We detected no transients originating outside of the solar system above a flux density limit of 500 Jy, equivalent to a limit of no more than about 10^{-2} events/yr/deg^2, having a pulse energy density >~ 1.5 x 10^{-20} J/m^2/Hz at 73.8 MHz for pulse widths of about 300 s. This event rate is comparable to that determined from previous all-sky transient searches, but at a lower frequency than most previous all-sky searches. We believe that the LWDA illustrates how an all-sky imaging mode could be a useful operational model for low-frequency instruments such as the Low Frequency Array, the Long Wavelength Array station, the low-frequency component of the Square Kilometre Array, and potentially the Lunar Radio Array.
This paper reports Very Large Array observations at 325 and 1425 MHz (90cm and 20cm) during and near the periastron passage of HD 80606b on 2007 November 20. We obtain flux density limits (3-sigma) of 1.7 mJy and 48 microJy at 325 and 1425 MHz, respe
ctively, equivalent to planetary luminosity limits of 2.3 x 10^{24} erg/s and 2.7 x 10^{23} erg/s. These are well above the Jovian value (at 40 MHz) of 2 x 10^{18} erg/s. The motivation for these observations was that the planetary magnetospheric emission is driven by a stellar wind-planetary magnetosphere interaction so that the planetary luminosity would be elevated. Near periastron, HD 80606b might be as much as 3000 times more luminous than Jupiter. Recent transit observations of HD 80606b provide stringent constraints on the planetary mass and radius, and, because of the planets highly eccentric orbit, its rotation period is likely to be pseudo-synchronized to its orbital period, allowing a robust estimate of the former. We are able to make robust estimates of the emission frequency of the planetary magnetospheric emission and find it to be around 60--90 MHz. We compare HD 80606b to other high-eccentricity systems and assess the detection possibilities for both near-term and more distant future systems. Of the known high eccentricity planets, only HD 80606b is likely to be detectable, as HD 20782B b and HD 4113b are both likely to have weaker magnetic field strengths. Both the forthcoming EVLA low band system and the Low Frequency Array may be able to improve upon our limits for HD 80606b, and do so at a more optimum frequency. If the low-frequency component of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA-lo) and a future lunar radio array are able to approach their thermal noise limits, they should be able to detect an HD 80606b-like planet, unless the planets luminosity increases by substantially less than a factor of 3000.
This paper considers the suitability of a number of emerging and future instruments for the study of radio recombination lines (RRLs) at frequencies below 200 MHz. These lines arise only in low-density regions of the ionized interstellar medium, and
they may represent a frequency-dependent foreground for next-generation experiments trying to detect H I signals from the Epoch of Reionization and Dark Ages (21-cm cosmology). We summarize existing decametre-wavelength observations of RRLs, which have detected only carbon RRLs. We then show that, for an interferometric array, the primary instrumental factor limiting detection and study of the RRLs is the areal filling factor of the array. We consider the Long Wavelength Array (LWA-1), the LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR), the low-frequency component of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA-lo), and a future Lunar Radio Array (LRA), all of which will operate at decametre wavelengths. These arrays offer digital signal processing, which should produce more stable and better defined spectral bandpasses; larger frequency tuning ranges; and better angular resolution than that of the previous generation of instruments that have been used in the past for RRL observations. Detecting Galactic carbon RRLs, with optical depths at the level of 10^-3, appears feasible for all of these arrays, with integration times of no more than 100 hr. The SKA-lo and LRA, and the LWA-1 and LOFAR at the lowest frequencies, should have a high enough filling factor to detect lines with much lower optical depths, of order 10^-4 in a few hundred hours. The amount of RRL-hosting gas present in the Galaxy at the high Galactic latitudes likely to be targeted in 21-cm cosmology studies is currently unknown. If present, however, the spectral fluctuations from RRLs could be comparable to or exceed the anticipated H I signals.
This paper reports a blind search for magnetospheric emissions from planets around nearby stars. Young stars are likely to have much stronger stellar winds than the Sun, and because planetary magnetospheric emissions are powered by stellar winds, str
onger stellar winds may enhance the radio luminosity of any orbiting planets. Using various stellar catalogs, we selected nearby stars (<~ 30 pc) with relatively young age estimates (< 3 Gyr). We constructed different samples from the stellar catalogs, finding between 100 and several hundred stars. We stacked images from the 74-MHz (4-m wavelength) VLA Low-frequency Sky Survey (VLSS), obtaining 3sigma limits on planetary emission in the stacked images of between 10 and 33 mJy. These flux density limits correspond to average planetary luminosities less than 5--10 x 10^{23} erg/s. Using recent models for the scaling of stellar wind velocity, density, and magnetic field with stellar age, we estimate scaling factors for the strength of stellar winds, relative to the Sun, in our samples. The typical kinetic energy carried by the stellar winds in our samples is 15--50 times larger than that of the Sun, and the typical magnetic energy is 5--10 times larger. If we assume that every star is orbited by a Jupiter-like planet with a luminosity larger than that of the Jovian decametric radiation by the above factors, our limits on planetary luminosities from the stacking analysis are likely to be a factor of 10--100 above what would be required to detect the planets in a statistical sense. Similar statistical analyses with observations by future instruments, such as the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) and the Long Wavelength Array (LWA), offer the promise of improvements by factors of 10--100.
The magnetospheric emissions from extrasolar planets represent a science frontier for the next decade. All of the solar system giant planets and the Earth produce radio emissions as a result of interactions between their magnetic fields and the solar
wind. In the case of the Earth, its magnetic field may contribute to its habitability by protecting its atmosphere from solar wind erosion and by preventing energetic particles from reaching its surface. Indirect evidence for at least some extrasolar giant planets also having magnetic fields includes the modulation of emission lines of their host stars phased with the planetary orbits, likely due to interactions between the stellar and planetary magnetic fields. If magnetic fields are a generic property of giant planets, then extrasolar giant planets should emit at radio wavelengths allowing for their direct detection. Existing observations place limits comparable to the flux densities expected from the strongest emissions. Additional sensitivity at low radio frequencies coupled with algorithmic improvements likely will enable a new means of detection and characterization of extrasolar planets within the next decade.
This paper reports dual-epoch, Very Long Baseline Array observations of H I absorption toward 3C 147. One of these epochs (2005) represents new observations while one (1998) represents the reprocessing of previous observations to obtain higher signal
-to-noise results. Significant H I opacity and column density variations, both spatially and temporally, are observed with typical variations at the level of Deltatau ~ 0.20 and in some cases as large as Deltatau ~ 0.70, corresponding to column density fluctuations of order 5 x 10^{19} cm^{-2} for an assumed 50 K spin temperature. The typical angular scale is 15 mas; while the distance to the absorbing gas is highly uncertain, the equivalent linear scale is likely to be about 10 AU. Approximately 10% of the face of the source is covered by these opacity variations, probably implying a volume filling factor for the small-scale absorbing gas of no more than about 1%. Comparing our results with earlier results toward 3C 138 (Brogan et al.), we find numerous similarities, and we conclude that small-scale absorbing gas is a ubiquitous phenomenon, albeit with a low probability of intercept on any given line of sight. Further, we compare the volumes sampled by the line of sight through the Galaxy between our two epochs and conclude that, on the basis of the motion of the Sun alone, these two volumes are likely to be substantially different. In order to place more significant constraints on the various models for the origin of these small-scale structures, more frequent sampling is required in any future observations.
We analyze a sample of 58 multi-wavelength, Very Long Baseline Array observations of active galactic nuclei (AGN) to determine their scattering properties. Approximately 75% of the sample consists of AGN that exhibit centimeter-wavelength intraday va
riability (interstellar scintillation) while the other 25% do not show intraday variability. We find that interstellar scattering is measurable for most of these AGN, and the typical broadening diameter is 2 mas at 1 GHz. We find that the scintillating AGN are typically at lower Galactic latitudes than the non-scintillating AGN, consistent with the scenario that intraday variability is a propagation effect from the Galactic interstellar medium. The magnitude of the inferred interstellar broadening measured toward the scintillating AGN, when scaled to higher frequencies, is comparable to the diameters inferred from analyses of the light curves for the more well-known intraday variable sources. However, we find no difference in the amount of scattering measured toward the scintillating versus non-scintillating AGN. A consistent picture is one in which the scintillation results from localized regions (clumps) distributed throughout the Galactic disk, but which individually make little contribution to the angular broadening. Of the 58 AGN observed, 37 (64%) have measured redshifts. At best, a marginal trend is found for scintillating (non-scintillating) AGN to have smaller (larger) angular diameters at higher redshifts. We also use our observations to try to constrain the possibility of intergalactic scattering. While broadly consistent with the scenario of a highly turbulent intergalactic medium, our observations do not place significant constraints on its properties.
