Apertif: Phased array feeds for the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope

Cappellen, W. A. van; Oosterloo, Tom; Verheijen, Marc; Adams, Elizabeth A. K.; Adebahr, B.; Braun, Róbert; Hess, Kelley M.; Holties, H. A.; Hulst, J. M. van der; Hut, B.; Kooistra, E.; Leeuwen, J. van; Loose, G. M.; Morganti, Raffaella; Moss, V. A.; Orrù, E.; Ruiter, M.; Schoenmakers, A. P.; Vermaas, N. J.; Wijnholds, Stefan J.; Amesfoort, A. S. van; Arts, M.; Attema, Jisk; Bakker, L.; Bassa, C. G.; Bast, J.; Benthem, P.; Beukema, R.; Blaauw, R.; Blok, W. J. G. de; Bouwhuis, M. C.; Brink, R. H. van den; Connor, Liam; Coolen, A. H. W. M.; Damstra, S.; Diepen, G. N. J. van; Goei, R. de; Dénes, H.; Drost, M.; Ebbendorf, Nico; Frank, B. S.; Gardenier, Donald; Gerbers, M.; Grange, Yan; Grit, T.; Gunst, A. W.; Gupta, N.; Ivashina, Marianna; Józsa, G. I. G.; Janssen, G. H.; Koster, A.; Kruithof, Gert; Kuindersma, S.; Kutkin, A. M.; Lucero, D. M.; Maan, Yogesh; Maccagni, F. M.; Marel, J. van der; Mika, Á.; Morawietz, J.; Mulder, H.; Mulder, E.; Norden, M. J.; Offringa, A. R.; Oostrum, L. C.; Overeem, R.; Paragi, Z.; Pepping, H. J.; Petroff, Emily; Pisano, D. J.; Polatidis, A. G.; Prasad, Peeyush; Reijer, J. P. R. de; Romein, John W.; Schaap, James C.; Schoonderbeek, G.; Schulz, R.; Schuur, D. van der; Sclocco, Alessio; Sluman, J.; Smits, R.; Stappers, B. W.; Straal, Samayra; Stuurwold, K. J. C.; Verstappen, J.; Vohl, Dany; Wierenga, K. J.; Woestenburg, E. E. M.; Zanting, A. W.; Ziemke, J.

doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202141739

Cited by 41 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 89 publications

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“…The LNAs includes a filter that suppresses the strong RFI present below the nominal bottom of the Apertif band, at 1130 MHz. This does, however, contribute ∼20 K to the total system temperature of ∼70 K (van Cappellen et al 2022). For the 12 dishes combined, and for the central, most sensitive CB, this produces an System-Equivalent Flux Density (SEFD) of ∼45 Jy at 0.75 aperture efficiency.…”

Section: Phased Array Feed (Paf)mentioning

confidence: 98%

“…To investigate some of these outstanding core questions on FRBs, we designed the Apertif Radio Transient System (ARTS; van Leeuwen 2014) to harness Apertif, the APERture Tile In Focus (van Cappellen et al 2022) on the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT) for finding and studying FRBs.…”

Section: Solutions With Arts On Apertifmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A general description of Apertif is available in van Cappellen et al (2022). In the next three sections we describe the timedomain capabilities.…”

Section: Description Of Time Domain System: I Hardwarementioning

confidence: 99%

“…A coherent beamformer weights and sums the input voltages from the input dishes. For the single voltage TAB (for timing or VLBI), the VHDL component from the subband CB beamformer in the Apertif FEBF (van Cappellen et al 2022) was directly reused. The multi-beam TABF function for surveying contains further parameters that define the increased number of weights.…”

Section: Firmwarementioning

confidence: 99%

“…This Fringe Stopping (FS) is applied per CB there, by coarse, true sample Delay Tracking (DT) plus fine-delay Phase Tracking (PT; Sect. A.1 and van Cappellen et al 2022). This CB480 data was also already transposed by T int_x in the FEBF as shown in Fig…”

Section: Multiple Tabs On Uniboardmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Apertif Radio Transient System (ARTS): Design, Commissioning, Data Release, and Detection of the first 5 Fast Radio Bursts

Leeuwen¹,

Kooistra²,

Oostrum³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Fast Radio Bursts must be powered by uniquely energetic emission mechanisms. This requirement has eliminated a number of possible source types, but several remain. Identifying the physical nature of Fast Radio Burst (FRB) emitters arguably requires good localisation of more detections, and broadband studies enabled by real-time alerting. We here present the Apertif Radio Transient System (ARTS), a supercomputing radio-telescope instrument that performs real-time FRB detection and localisation on the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT) interferometer. It reaches coherent-addition sensitivity over the entire field of the view of the primarydish beam. After commissioning results verified the system performed as planned, we initiated the Apertif FRB survey (ALERT). Over the first 5 weeks we observed at design sensitivity in 2019, we detected 5 new FRBs, and interferometrically localised each of these to 0.4−10 sq. arcmin. All detections are broad band and very narrow, of order 1 ms duration, and unscattered. Dispersion measures are generally high. Only through the very high time and frequency resolution of ARTS are these hard-to-find FRBs detected, producing an unbiased view of the intrinsic population properties. Most localisation regions are small enough to rule out the presence of associated persistent radio sources. Three FRBs cut through the halos of M31 and M33. We demonstrate that Apertif can localise one-off FRBs with an accuracy that maps magneto-ionic material along well-defined lines of sight. The rate of 1 every ∼7 days next ensures a considerable number of new sources are detected for such study. The combination of detection rate and localisation accuracy exemplified by the 5 first ARTS FRBs thus marks a new phase in which a growing number of bursts can be used to probe our Universe.

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Section: Phased Array Feed (Paf)mentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Solutions With Arts On Apertifmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A general description of Apertif is available in van Cappellen et al (2022). In the next three sections we describe the timedomain capabilities.…”

Section: Description Of Time Domain System: I Hardwarementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Firmwarementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Multiple Tabs On Uniboardmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

The Apertif Radio Transient System (ARTS): Design, Commissioning, Data Release, and Detection of the first 5 Fast Radio Bursts

Leeuwen¹,

Kooistra²,

Oostrum³

et al. 2022

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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Design of Broadband Phased Array Feed Using Stereolithographic Additive Manufacturing Heterogeneous Integrating Technology for Fast Radio Burst Observation

Wang,

Liu,

et al. 2024

Adv Eng Mater

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Herein, a stereolithography appearance 3‐D printed phased array feed (PAF) on radio telescopes based on broadband Vivaldi antenna elements covering 4–10 GHz, which meets the requirements of low cost, lightweight, and compact volume, is designed and proposed. The prototype is integrated with two orthogonal linear polarized 4 × 5 arrays, each of which is composed of 20 Vivaldi antenna elements. The distance between adjacent antenna elements is 1/2 λ in both E‐plane and H‐plane. By increasing thickness of the slice elements compared with traditional end‐fire arrays on printed circuit board, the wide‐band impedance matching is realized. The mutual impedance matrix of the dual‐polarization array is calculated and the equivalent circuit of the active and parasitic elements is demonstrated. Due to the orthogonal parasitic elements inserted between the adjacent active antennas, equivalent capacitance is introduced in the tightly coupled array. The measured active voltage standing wave ratio of the manufactured PAF exhibits 4–10 GHz operating bandwidth for both broadside radiation and 45° scan in both E‐ and H‐plane polarization. The proposed wideband PAF has a promising potential application prospect in fast radio burst and other astronomic observation.

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Innovation Meets Reality: The SKA Design

Schilizzi,

Ekers,

Dewdney

et al. 2024

Historical &Amp; Cultural Astronomy

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This chapter is an account of the creativity of a host of engineers and scientists to build a groundbreaking radio telescope with the performance needed to extract the scientific treasures buried in weak radio signals from the distant Universe, of which there were previously only hints. Always moving forward, it describes the road from the ambition to overcome barriers and harness new technologies to the reality of thousands of difficult individual decisions that had to be made to successfully yield a realisable design in the available time. The global milieu in which this was done as an international project has set many precedents.

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Apertif: Phased array feeds for the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope

Cited by 41 publications

References 89 publications

The Apertif Radio Transient System (ARTS): Design, Commissioning, Data Release, and Detection of the first 5 Fast Radio Bursts

The Apertif Radio Transient System (ARTS): Design, Commissioning, Data Release, and Detection of the first 5 Fast Radio Bursts

Design of Broadband Phased Array Feed Using Stereolithographic Additive Manufacturing Heterogeneous Integrating Technology for Fast Radio Burst Observation

Innovation Meets Reality: The SKA Design

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