For radio interferometric arrays with a sufficient number of redundant spacings the multiplicity of measurements of the same sky visibility can be used to determine both the antenna gains as well as the true visibilities. Many of the earlier approaches to this problem focused on lineariz
We describe the serendipitous discovery of a radio point source in a 618 MHz image of the supernova remnant(SNR) G76.9+1.0. The SNR has a bipolar structure and the point source is located near a faint bridge of emission joining the two lobes of emiss
ion. The point source was also detected in follow-up higher frequency(1170 MHz) observations. The spectral index for the point source obtained from the GMRT observations is alpha = -2.1. The steep spectrum, as well as the location of the point source near the centre of the SNR establish the fact that it is indeed the pulsar J2022+3842 associated with this SNR. Consistent with this, subsequent analysis of archival Chandra X-ray data shows a point source coincident with the radio point source, as well as diffuse extended X-ray emission surrounding the unresolved source. However, no pulsed emission was detected despite deep searches at both 610 MHz and 1160 MHz although pulsed emission has been seen at 2 GHz with the GBT. It appears that the most likely reason for not detecting the pulsed signal at the GMRT is temporal broadening: for the estimated DM towards this SNR, the pulse broadening time could be as large as tens of milliseconds. The diffuse X-ray emission is elongated along the same direction as the bipolar structure seen in the radio. We interpret the radio lobes as having been formed from an equatorial wind. Although direct detection of pulsed signal has not been possible, we show convincingly that sensitive, high-resolution, radio imaging at multiple frequencies is a useful method to search for pulsar candidates.
The OH molecule, found abundantly in the Milky Way, has four transitions at the ground state rotational level(J = 3/2) at cm wavelengths. These are E1 transitions between the F+ and F- hyperfine levels of the Lambda doublet of the J=3/2 state. There
are also forbidden M1 transitions between the hyperfine levels within each of the doublet states occuring at frequencies 53.171 MHz and 55.128 MHz. These are extremely weak and hence difficult to detect. However there is a possibility that the level populations giving rise to these lines are inverted under special conditions, in which case it may be possible to detect them through their maser emission. We describe the observational diagnostics for determining when the hyperfine levels are inverted, and identify a region near W44 where these conditions are satisfied. A high-velocity-resolution search for these hyperfine OH lines using the low frequency feeds on four antennas of the GMRT and the new GMRT Software Backend(GSB) was performed on this target near W44. We place a 3-sigma upper limit of ~17.3 Jy (at 1 km/s velocity resolution) for the 55 MHz line from this region. This corresponds to an upper limit of 3 X 10^8 for the amplification of the Galactic synchrotron emission providing the background.
