1210.8246 (ATA GROUP et al.)

Primary Beam and Dish Surface Characterization at the Allen Telescope Array by Radio Holography    [PDF]

ATA GROUP, Shannon Atkinson, D. C. Backer, P. R. Backus, William Barott, Amber Bauermeister, Leo Blitz, D. C. -J. Bock, Geoffrey C. Bower, Tucker Bradford, Calvin Cheng, Steve Croft, Matt Dexter, John Dreher, Greg Engargiola, Ed Fields, Carl Heiles, Tamara Helfer, Jane Jordan, Susan Jorgensen, Tom Kilsdonk, Colby Gutierrez-Kraybill, Garrett Keating, Casey Law, John Lugten, D. H. E. MacMahon, Peter McMahon, Oren Milgrome, Andrew Siemion, Ken Smolek, Douglas Thornton, Tom Pierson, Karen Randall, John Ross, Seth Shostak, J. C. Tarter, Lynn Urry, Dan Werthimer, Peter K. G. Williams, David Whysong, G. R. Harp, R. F. Ackermann, Z. J. Nadler, Samantha K. Blair, M. M. Davis, M. C. H. Wright, J. R. Forster, D. R. DeBoer, W. J. Welch

The Allen Telescope Array (ATA) is a cm-wave interferometer in California, comprising 42 antenna elements with 6-m diameter dishes. We characterize the antenna optical accuracy using two-antenna interferometry and radio holography. The distortion of each telescope relative to the average is small, with RMS differences of 1 percent of beam peak value. Holography provides images of dish illumination pattern, allowing characterization of as-built mirror surfaces. The ATA dishes can experience mm-scale distortions across -2 meter lengths due to mounting stresses or solar radiation. Experimental RMS errors are 0.7 mm at night and 3 mm under worst case solar illumination. For frequencies 4, 10, and 15 GHz, the nighttime values indicate sensitivity losses of 1, 10 and 20 percent, respectively. The ATA.s exceptional wide-bandwidth permits observations over a continuous range 0.5 to 11.2 GHz, and future retrofits may increase this range to 15 GHz. Beam patterns show a slowly varying focus frequency dependence. We probe the antenna optical gain and beam pattern stability as a function of focus and observation frequency, concluding that ATA can produce high fidelity images over a decade of simultaneous observation frequencies. In the day, the antenna sensitivity and pointing accuracy are affected. We find that at frequencies greater than 5 GHz, daytime observations greater than 5 GHz will suffer some sensitivity loss and it may be necessary to make antenna pointing corrections on a 1 to 2 hourly basis.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1210.8246