文章基本信息

标题：An Eigenvector-Based Method of Radio Array Calibration and Its Application to the Tianlai Cylinder Pathfinder
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作者：Shifan Zuo ; Ue-Li Pen ; Fengquan Wu 等
期刊名称：The Astronomical journal
印刷版ISSN：0004-6256
电子版ISSN：1538-3881
出版年度：2019
卷号：157
期号：1
页码：1-14
DOI：10.3847/1538-3881/aaf4c0
语种：English
出版社：American Institute of Physics
摘要：We propose an eigenvector-based formalism for the calibration of radio interferometer arrays. In the presence of a strong dominant point source, the complex gains of the array can be obtained by taking the first eigenvector of the visibility matrix. We use the stable principle component analysis method to help separate outliers and noise from the calibrator signal to improve the performance of the method. This method can be applied with poorly known beam model of the antenna, is insensitive to outliers or imperfections in the data, and has low computational complexity. It thus is particularly suitable for the initial calibration of the array, which can serve as the initial point for more accurate calibrations. We demonstrate this method by applying it to the cylinder pathfinder of the Tianlai experiment, which aims to measure the dark energy equation of state using the baryon acoustic oscillation features in the large-scale structure by making intensity mapping observation of the redshifted 21 cm emission of the neutral hydrogen (H I ). The complex gain of the array elements and the beam profile in the east–west direction (short axis of the cylinder) are successfully obtained by applying this method to the transit data of bright radio sources.
关键词：instrumentation: interferometers;methods: data analysis;techniques: interferometric