Fast Fourier transform telescope
We propose an all-digital telescope for 21 cm tomography, which combines key advantages of both single dishes and interferometers. The electric field is digitized by antennas on a rectangular grid, after which a series of fast Fourier transforms recovers simultaneous multifrequency images of up to...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
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American Physical Society
2010
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/51042 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7670-7190 |
| _version_ | 1826197373768957952 |
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| author | Tegmark, Max Erik Zaldarriaga, Matias, 1971- |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics Tegmark, Max Erik Zaldarriaga, Matias, 1971- |
| author_sort | Tegmark, Max Erik |
| collection | MIT |
| description | We propose an all-digital telescope for 21 cm tomography, which combines key advantages of both
single dishes and interferometers. The electric field is digitized by antennas on a rectangular grid, after
which a series of fast Fourier transforms recovers simultaneous multifrequency images of up to half the
sky. Thanks to Moore’s law, the bandwidth up to which this is feasible has now reached about 1 GHz, and
will likely continue doubling every couple of years. The main advantages over a single dish telescope are
cost and orders of magnitude larger field-of-view, translating into dramatically better sensitivity for largearea
surveys. The key advantages over traditional interferometers are cost (the correlator computational
cost for an N-element array scales as Nlog[subscript 2]N rather than N[superscript 2]) and a compact synthesized beam. We argue
that 21 cm tomography could be an ideal first application of a very large fast Fourier transform telescope,
which would provide both massive sensitivity improvements per dollar and mitigate the off-beam point
source foreground problem with its clean beam. Another potentially interesting application is cosmic
microwave background polarization. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T10:46:42Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/51042 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T10:46:42Z |
| publishDate | 2010 |
| publisher | American Physical Society |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/510422022-09-30T22:56:51Z Fast Fourier transform telescope Tegmark, Max Erik Zaldarriaga, Matias, 1971- Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research Tegmark, Max Erik Tegmark, Max Erik We propose an all-digital telescope for 21 cm tomography, which combines key advantages of both single dishes and interferometers. The electric field is digitized by antennas on a rectangular grid, after which a series of fast Fourier transforms recovers simultaneous multifrequency images of up to half the sky. Thanks to Moore’s law, the bandwidth up to which this is feasible has now reached about 1 GHz, and will likely continue doubling every couple of years. The main advantages over a single dish telescope are cost and orders of magnitude larger field-of-view, translating into dramatically better sensitivity for largearea surveys. The key advantages over traditional interferometers are cost (the correlator computational cost for an N-element array scales as Nlog[subscript 2]N rather than N[superscript 2]) and a compact synthesized beam. We argue that 21 cm tomography could be an ideal first application of a very large fast Fourier transform telescope, which would provide both massive sensitivity improvements per dollar and mitigate the off-beam point source foreground problem with its clean beam. Another potentially interesting application is cosmic microwave background polarization. David and Lucile Packard Foundation John Templeton foundation National Science Foundation NASA 2010-01-29T19:44:45Z 2010-01-29T19:44:45Z 2009-04 2008-06 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 1550-2368 1550-7998 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/51042 Tegmark, Max , and Matias Zaldarriaga. “Fast Fourier transform telescope.” Physical Review D 79.8 (2009): 083530. (C) 2010 The American Physical Society. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7670-7190 en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.79.083530 Physical Review D Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use. application/pdf American Physical Society APS |
| spellingShingle | Tegmark, Max Erik Zaldarriaga, Matias, 1971- Fast Fourier transform telescope |
| title | Fast Fourier transform telescope |
| title_full | Fast Fourier transform telescope |
| title_fullStr | Fast Fourier transform telescope |
| title_full_unstemmed | Fast Fourier transform telescope |
| title_short | Fast Fourier transform telescope |
| title_sort | fast fourier transform telescope |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/51042 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7670-7190 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT tegmarkmaxerik fastfouriertransformtelescope AT zaldarriagamatias1971 fastfouriertransformtelescope |