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

Details Primary Beam and Dish Surface Characterization at the Allen Telescope Array by Radio Holography Primary Beam and Dish Surface Characterization at the Allen Telescope Array by Radio Holography

Jun 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011itap...59.2004h&link_type=abstract

IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, vol. 59, issue 6, pp. 2004-2021

Computer Science

Scientific paper

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% of beam peak value. Holography provides images of dish illumination, characterizing as-built mirror surfaces. Maximal distortions across ~ 2 meter lengths appear to result from 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%, respectively. ATA's wide-bandwidth receiver permits observations over a continuous range 0.5-11.2 GHz. We probe the antenna optical gain and beam pattern stability as a function of focus position and observation frequency, concluding that ATA can produce high fidelity images over a decade of simultaneous observation frequencies. We quantify solar heating effects on antenna sensitivity and pointing accuracy. We find that during the day, observations >=5 GHz will suffer some sensitivity loss and it may be necessary to make antenna pointing corrections on a 1-2 hourly basis.

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