arXiv subjects

Albert Stebbins

Publications and source records attributed to Albert Stebbins.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2021

AlgoSCR: An algorithm for Solar Contamination Removal from radio interferometric data

Hydrogen intensity mapping is a new field in astronomy that promises to make three-dimensional maps of the matter distribution of the Universe using the redshifted $21\,\textrm{cm}$ line of neutral hydrogen gas (HI). Several ongoing and upcoming radio interferometers, such as Tianlai, CHIME, HERA, HIRAX, etc. are using this technique. These instruments are designed to map large swaths of the sky by drift scanning over periods of many months. One of the challenges of the observations is that the daytime data is contaminated by strong radio signals from the Sun. In the case of Tianlai, this results in almost half of the measured data being unusable. We try to address this issue by developing an algorithm for solar contamination removal (AlgoSCR) from the radio data. The algorithm is based on an eigenvalue analysis of the visibility matrix, and hence is applicable only to interferometers. We apply AlgoSCR to simulated visibilities, as well as real daytime data from the Tianlai dish array. The algorithm can remove most of the solar contamination without seriously affecting other sky signals and thus makes the data usable for certain applications.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2021

A Lunar Farside Low Radio Frequency Array for Dark Ages 21-cm Cosmology

An array of low-frequency dipole antennas on the lunar farside surface will probe a unique, unexplored epoch in the early Universe called the Dark Ages. It begins at Recombination when neutral hydrogen atoms formed, first revealed by the cosmic microwave background. This epoch is free of stars and astrophysics, so it is ideal to investigate high energy particle processes including dark matter, early Dark Energy, neutrinos, and cosmic strings. A NASA-funded study investigated the design of the instrument and the deployment strategy from a lander of 128 pairs of antenna dipoles across a 10 kmx10 km area on the lunar surface. The antenna nodes are tethered to the lander for central data processing, power, and data transmission to a relay satellite. The array, named FARSIDE, would provide the capability to image the entire sky in 1400 channels spanning frequencies from 100 kHz to 40 MHz, extending down two orders of magnitude below bands accessible to ground-based radio astronomy. The lunar farside can simultaneously provide isolation from terrestrial radio frequency interference, the Earth's auroral kilometric radiation, and plasma noise from the solar wind. It is thus the only location within the inner solar system from which sky noise limited observations can be carried out at sub-MHz frequencies. Through precision calibration via an orbiting beacon and exquisite foreground characterization, the farside array would measure the Dark Ages global 21-cm signal at redshifts z~35-200. It will also be a pathfinder for a larger 21-cm power spectrum instrument by carefully measuring the foreground with high dynamic range.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2020

Data Processing Pipeline For Tianlai Experiment

The Tianlai project is a 21cm intensity mapping experiment aimed at detecting dark energy by measuring the baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) features in the large scale structure power spectrum. This experiment provides an opportunity to test the data processing methods for cosmological 21cm signal extraction, which is still a great challenge in current radio astronomy research. The 21cm signal is much weaker than the foregrounds and easily affected by the imperfections in the instrumental responses. Furthermore, processing the large volumes of interferometer data poses a practical challenge. We have developed a data processing pipeline software called {\tt tlpipe} to process the drift scan survey data from the Tianlai experiment. It performs offline data processing tasks such as radio frequency interference (RFI) flagging, array calibration, binning, and map-making, etc. It also includes utility functions needed for the data analysis, such as data selection, transformation, visualization and others. A number of new algorithms are implemented, for example the eigenvector decomposition method for array calibration and the Tikhonov regularization for $m$-mode analysis. In this paper we describe the design and implementation of the {\tt tlpipe} and illustrate its functions with some analysis of real data. Finally, we outline directions for future development of this publicly code.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2020

The Tianlai Cylinder Pathfinder Array: System Functions and Basic Performance Analysis

The Tianlai Cylinder Pathfinder is a radio interferometer array designed to test techniques for 21 cm intensity mapping in the post-reionization Universe, with the ultimate aim of mapping the large scale structure and measuring cosmological parameters such as the dark energy equation of state. Each of its three parallel cylinder reflectors is oriented in the north-south direction, and the array has a large field of view. As the Earth rotates, the northern sky is observed by drift scanning. The array is located in Hongliuxia, a radio-quiet site in Xinjiang, and saw its first light in September 2016. In this first data analysis paper for the Tianlai cylinder array, we discuss the sub-system qualification tests, and present basic system performance obtained from preliminary analysis of the commissioning observations during 2016-2018. We show typical interferometric visibility data, from which we derive the actual beam profile in the east-west direction and the frequency band-pass response. We describe also the calibration process to determine the complex gains for the array elements, either using bright astronomical point sources, or an artificial on site calibrator source, and discuss the instrument response stability, crucial for transit interferometry. Based on this analysis, we find a system temperature of about 90 K, and we also estimate the sensitivity of the array.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2019

New Limits on Charged Dark Matter from Large-Scale Coherent Magnetic Fields

We study the interaction of an electrically charged component of the dark matter with a magnetized galactic interstellar medium (ISM) of (rotating) spiral galaxies. For the observed ordered component of the field, $B\sim μ$G, we find that the accumulated Lorentz interactions between the charged particles and the ISM will extract an order unity fraction of the disk angular momentum over the few Gyr Galactic lifetime unless $q/e \lesssim 10^{-13\pm 1}\,m\,c^2/$ GeV if all the dark matter is charged. The bound is weakened by factor $f_{\rm qdm}^{-1/2}$ if only a mass fraction $f_{\rm qdm}\gtrsim0.13$ of the dark matter is charged. Here $q$ and $m$ are the dark matter particle mass and charge. If $f_{\rm qdm}\approx1$ this bound excludes charged dark matter produced via the freeze-in mechanism for $m \lesssim$ TeV/$c^2$. This bound on $q/m$, obtained from Milky Way parameters, is rough and not based on any precise empirical test. However this bound is extremely strong and should motivate further work to better model the interaction of charged dark matter with ordered and disordered magnetic fields in galaxies and clusters of galaxies; to develop precise tests for the presence of charged dark matter based on better estimates of angular momentum exchange; and also to better understand how charged dark matter might modify the growth of magnetic fields, and the formation and interaction histories of galaxies, galaxy groups, and clusters.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2019

Inflation and Early Dark Energy with a Stage II Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment

This white paper envisions a revolutionary post-DESI, post-LSST dark energy program based on intensity mapping of the redshifted 21cm emission line from neutral hydrogen at radio frequencies. The proposed intensity mapping survey has the unique capability to quadruple the volume of the Universe surveyed by optical programs, provide a percent-level measurement of the expansion history to $z \sim 6$, open a window to explore physics beyond the concordance $Λ$CDM model, and to significantly improve the precision on standard cosmological parameters. In addition, characterization of dark energy and new physics will be powerfully enhanced by cross-correlations with optical surveys and cosmic microwave background measurements. The rich dataset obtained by the proposed intensity mapping instrument will be simultaneously useful in exploring the time-domain physics of fast radio transients and pulsars, potentially in live "multi-messenger" coincidence with other observatories. The core dark energy/inflation science advances enabled by this program are the following: (i) Measure the expansion history of the universe over $z=0.3-6$ with a single instrument, extending the range deep into the pre-acceleration era, providing an unexplored window for new physics; (ii) Measure the growth rate of structure in the universe over the same redshift range; (iii) Observe, or constrain, the presence of inflationary relics in the primordial power spectrum, improving existing constraints by an order of magnitude; (iv) Observe, or constrain, primordial non-Gaussianity with unprecedented precision, improving constraints on several key numbers by an order of magnitude. Detailed mapping of the enormous, and still largely unexplored, volume of cosmic space will thus provide unprecedented information on fundamental questions of the vacuum energy and early-universe physics.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2019

Packed Ultra-wideband Mapping Array (PUMA): A Radio Telescope for Cosmology and Transients

PUMA is a proposal for an ultra-wideband, low-resolution and transit interferometric radio telescope operating at $200-1100\,\mathrm{MHz}$. Its design is driven by six science goals which span three science themes: the physics of dark energy (measuring the expansion history and growth of the universe up to $z=6$), the physics of inflation (constraining primordial non-Gaussianity and primordial features) and the transient radio sky (detecting one million fast radio bursts and following up SKA-discovered pulsars). We propose two array configurations composed of hexagonally close-packed 6m dish arrangements with 50% fill factor. The initial 5,000 element 'petite array' is scientifically compelling, and can act as a demonstrator and a stepping stone to the full 32,000 element 'full array'. Viewed as a 21cm intensity mapping telescope, the program has the noise equivalent of a traditional spectroscopic galaxy survey comprised of 0.6 and 2.5 billion galaxies at a comoving wavenumber of $k=0.5\,h\mathrm{Mpc}^{-1}$ spanning the redshift range $z = 0.3 - 6$ for the petite and full configurations, respectively. At redshifts beyond $z=2$, the 21cm technique is a uniquely powerful way of mapping the universe, while the low-redshift range will allow for numerous cross-correlations with existing and upcoming surveys. This program is enabled by the development of ultra-wideband radio feeds, cost-effective dish construction methods, commodity radio-frequency electronics driven by the telecommunication industry and the emergence of sufficient computing power to facilitate real-time signal processing that exploits the full potential of massive radio arrays. The project has an estimated construction cost of 55 and 330 million FY19 USD for the petite and full array configurations. Including R&D, design, operations and science analysis, the cost rises to 125 and 600 million FY19 USD, respectively.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2019

Research and Development for HI Intensity Mapping

Development of the hardware, data analysis, and simulation techniques for large compact radio arrays dedicated to mapping the 21 cm line of neutral hydrogen gas has proven to be more difficult than imagined twenty years ago when such telescopes were first proposed. Despite tremendous technical and methodological advances, there are several outstanding questions on how to optimally calibrate and analyze such data. On the positive side, it has become clear that the outstanding issues are purely technical in nature and can be solved with sufficient development activity. Such activity will enable science across redshifts, from early galaxy evolution in the pre-reionization era to dark energy evolution at low redshift.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2018

An Eigenvector-based Method of Radio Array Calibration and Its Application to the Tianlai Cylinder Pathfinder

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 (SPCA) 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, and 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 (BAO) features in the large scale structure by making intensity mapping observation of the redshifted 21~cm emission of the neutral hydrogen (HI). 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.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2018

Progress in the Construction and Testing of the Tianlai Radio Interferometers

The Tianlai Pathfinder is designed to demonstrate the feasibility of using a wide field of view radio interferometers to map the density of neutral hydrogen in the Universe after the Epoch of Reionizaton. This approach, called 21~cm intensity-mapping, promises an inexpensive means for surveying the large-scale structure of the cosmos. The Tianlai Pathfinder presently consists of an array of three, 15~m $\times$ 40~m cylinder telescopes and an array of sixteen, 6~m diameter dish antennas located in a radio-quiet part of western China. The two types of arrays were chosen to determine the advantages and disadvantages of each approach. The primary goal of the Pathfinder is to make 3D maps by surveying neutral hydrogen over large areas of the sky %$20,000 {\rm deg}^2$ in two different redshift ranges: first at $1.03 > z > 0.78$ ($700 - 800$~MHz) and later at $0.21 > z > 0.12$ ($1170 - 1270$~MHz). The most significant challenge to $21$~cm intensity-mapping is the removal of strong foreground radiation that dwarfs the cosmological signal. It requires exquisite knowledge of the instrumental response, i.e. calibration. In this paper, we provide an overview of the status of the Pathfinder and discuss the details of some of the analysis that we have carried out to measure the beam function of both arrays. We compare electromagnetic simulations of the arrays to measurements, discuss measurements of the gain and phase stability of the instrument, and provide a brief overview of the data processing pipeline.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2017

Simulation and Testing of a Linear Array of Modified Four-Square Feed Antennas for the Tianlai Cylindrical Radio Telescope

A wide bandwidth, dual polarized, modified four-square antenna is presented as a feed antenna for radio astronomical measurements. A linear array of these antennas is used as a line-feed for cylindrical reflectors for Tianlai, a radio interferometer designed for 21~cm intensity mapping. Simulations of the feed antenna beam patterns and scattering parameters are compared to experimental results at multiple frequencies across the 650 - 1420 MHz range. Simulations of the beam patterns of the combined feed array/reflector are presented as well.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2015

Are Crab Nanoshots Schwinger Sparks?

The highest brightness temperature ever observed are from "nanoshots" from the Crab pulsar which we argue could be the signature of bursts of vacuum $e^{\pm}$ pair production. If so this would be the first time the astronomical Schwinger effect has been observed. These "Schwinger sparks" would be an intermittent but extremely powerful, $\sim 10^3 L_{\astrosun}$, 10 PeV $e^{\pm}$ accelerator in the heart of the Crab. These nanosecond duration sparks are generated in a volume less than $1 m^3$ and the existence of such sparks has implications for the small scale structure of the magnetic field of young pulsars such as the Crab. This mechanism may also play a role in producing other enigmatic bright short radio transients such as fast radio bursts.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2015

Parameterization of temperature and spectral distortions in future CMB experiments

CMB spectral distortions are induced by Compton collisions with electrons. We review the various schemes to characterize the anisotropic CMB with a non-Planckian spectrum. We advocate using logarithmically averaged temperature moments as the preferred language to describe these spectral distortions, both for theoretical modeling and observations. Numerical modeling is simpler, the moments are frame-independent, and in terms of scattering the mode truncation is exact.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2014

Coaxing Cosmic 21cm Fluctuations from the Polarized Sky using m-mode Analysis

In this paper we continue to develop the m-mode formalism, a technique for efficient and optimal analysis of wide-field transit radio telescopes, targeted at 21 cm cosmology. We extend this formalism to give an accurate treatment of the polarised sky, fully accounting for the effects of polarisation leakage and cross-polarisation. We use the geometry of the measured set of visibilities to project down to pure temperature modes on the sky, serving as a significant compression, and an effective first filter of polarised contaminants. We use the m-mode formalism with the Karhunen-Loeve transform to give a highly efficient method for foreground cleaning, and demonstrate its success in cleaning realistic polarised skies observed with an instrument suffering from substantial off axis polarisation leakage. We develop an optimal quadratic estimator in the m-mode formalism, which can be efficiently calculated using a Monte-Carlo technique. This is used to assess the implications of foreground removal for power spectrum constraints where we find that our method can clean foregrounds well below the foreground wedge, rendering only scales $k_\parallel < 0.02 h \,\mathrm{Mpc}^{-1}$ inaccessible. As this approach assumes perfect knowledge of the telescope, we perform a conservative test of how essential this is by simulating and analysing datasets with deviations about our assumed telescope. Assuming no other techniques to mitigate bias are applied, we recover unbiased power spectra when the per-feed beam width to be measured to 0.1%, and amplifier gains to be known to 1% within each minute. Finally, as an example application, we extend our forecasts to a wideband 400-800 MHz cosmological observation and consider the implications for probing dark energy, finding a medium-sized cylinder telescope improves the DETF Figure of Merit by around 70% over Planck and Stage II experiments alone.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2013

All-Sky Interferometry with Spherical Harmonic Transit Telescopes

In this paper we describe the spherical harmonic transit telescope, a novel formalism for the analysis of transit radio telescopes. This all-sky approach bypasses the curved sky complications of traditional interferometry and so is particularly well suited to the analysis of wide-field radio interferometers. It enables compact and computationally efficient representations of the data and its statistics that allow new ways of approaching important problems like map-making and foreground removal. In particular, we show how it enables the use of the Karhunen-Loeve transform as a highly effective foreground filter, suppressing realistic foreground residuals for our fiducial example by at least a factor twenty below the 21cm signal even in highly contaminated regions of the sky. This is despite the presence of the angle-frequency mode mixing inherent in real-world instruments with frequency-dependent beams. We show, using Fisher forecasting, that foreground cleaning has little effect on power spectrum constraints compared to hypothetical foreground-free measurements. Beyond providing a natural real-world data analysis framework for 21cm telescopes now under construction and future experiments, this formalism allows accurate power spectrum forecasts to be made that include the interplay of design constraints and realistic experimental systematics with twenty-first century 21cm science.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2012

Measuring Space-Time Geometry over the Ages

Theorists are often told to express things in the "observational plane". One can do this for space-time geometry, considering "visual" observations of matter in our universe by a single observer over time, with no assumptions about isometries, initial conditions, nor any particular relation between matter and geometry, such as Einstein's equations. Using observables as coordinates naturally leads to a parametrization of space-time geometry in terms of other observables, which in turn prescribes an observational program to measure the geometry. Under the assumption of vorticity-free matter flow we describe this observational program, which includes measurements of gravitational lensing, proper motion, and redshift drift. Only 15% of the curvature information can be extracted without long time baseline observations, and this increases to 35% with observations that will take decades. The rest would likely require centuries of observations. The formalism developed is exact, non-perturbative, and more general than the usual cosmological analysis.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2011

Probing Superluminal Neutrinos Via Refraction

One phenomenological explanation of superluminal propagation of neutrinos, which may have been observed by OPERA and MINOS, is that neutrinos travel faster inside of matter than in vacuum. If so neutrinos exhibit refraction inside matter and should exhibit other manifestations of refraction, such as deflection and reflection. Such refraction would be easily detectable through the momentum imparted to appropriately shaped refractive material inserted into the neutrino beam. For NuMI this could be as large as ~10g cm/s. If these effect were found, they would provide new ways of manipulating and detecting neutrinos. Reasons why this scenario seems implausible are given, however it is still worthwhile to conduct simple searches for differential refraction of neutrinos.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2011

Confirmation of the Copernican principle at Gpc radial scale and above from the kinetic Sunyaev Zel'dovich effect power spectrum

The Copernican principle, a cornerstone of modern cosmology, remains largely unproven at Gpc radial scale and above. Here we will show that, violations of this type will inevitably cause a first order anisotropic kinetic Sunyaev Zel'dovich (kSZ) effect. If large scale radial inhomogeneities have amplitude large enough to explain the "dark energy" phenomena, the induced kSZ power spectrum will be much larger than the ACT/SPT upper limit. This single test confirms the Copernican principle and rules out the adiabatic void model as a viable alternative to dark energy.

astro-ph.CO↗