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arXiv · 2210.02276

CASA, the Common Astronomy Software Applications for Radio Astronomy

Abstract

CASA, the Common Astronomy Software Applications, is the primary data processing software for the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA), and is frequently used also for other radio telescopes. The CASA software can handle data from single-dish, aperture-synthesis, and Very Long Baseline Interferometery (VLBI) telescopes. One of its core functionalities is to support the calibration and imaging pipelines for ALMA, VLA, VLA Sky Survey (VLASS), and the Nobeyama 45m telescope. This paper presents a high-level overview of the basic structure of the CASA software, as well as procedures for calibrating and imaging astronomical radio data in CASA. CASA is being developed by an international consortium of scientists and software engineers based at the National Radio Astronomical Observatory (NRAO), the European Southern Observatory (ESO), the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), and the Joint Institute for VLBI European Research Infrastructure Consortium (JIV-ERIC), under the guidance of NRAO.

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THE CASA TEAM, Ben Bean, Sanjay Bhatnagar, Sandra Castro, Jennifer Donovan Meyer, Bjorn Emonts, Enrique Garcia, Robert Garwood, Kumar Golap, Justo Gonzalez Villalba, Pamela Harris, Yohei Hayashi, Josh Hoskins, Mingyu Hsieh, Preshanth Jagannathan, Wataru Kawasaki, Aard Keimpema, Mark Kettenis, Jorge Lopez, Joshua Marvil, Joseph Masters, Andrew McNichols, David Mehringer, Renaud Miel, George Moellenbrock, Federico Montesino, Takeshi Nakazato, Juergen Ott, Dirk Petry, Martin Pokorny, Ryan Raba, Urvashi Rau, Darrell Schiebel, Neal Schweighart, Srikrishna Sekhar, Kazuhiko Shimada, Des Small, Jan-Willem Steeb, Kanako Sugimoto, Ville Suoranta, Takahiro Tsutsumi, Ilse M. van Bemmel, Marjolein Verkouter, Akeem Wells, Wei Xiong, Arpad Szomoru, Morgan Griffith, Brian Glendenning, Jeff Kern. 2022-10-05. CASA, the Common Astronomy Software Applications for Radio Astronomy. https://doi.org/10.1088/1538-3873/ac9642

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