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Shreyam Krishna

Publications and source records attributed to Shreyam Krishna.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

BIPP: An efficient HPC implementation of the Bluebild algorithm for radio astronomy

The Bluebild algorithm is a new technique for image synthesis in radio astronomy which decomposes the sky into distinct energy levels using functional principal component analysis. These levels can be linearly combined to construct a least-squares estimate of the radio sky, i.e. minimizing the residuals between measured and predicted visibilities. This approach is particularly useful for deconvolution-free imaging or for scientific applications that need to filter specific energy levels. We present an HPC implementation of the Bluebild algorithm for radio-interferometric imaging: Bluebild Imaging++ (BIPP). The library features interfaces to C++, C and Python and is designed with seamless GPU acceleration in mind. We evaluate the accuracy and performance of BIPP on simulated observations of the upcoming Square Kilometer Array Observatory and real data from the Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR) telescope. We find that BIPP offers accurate wide-field imaging and has competitive execution time with respect to the interferometric imaging libraries CASA and WSClean for images with $\leq 10^6$ pixels. Furthermore, due to the energy level decomposition, images produced with BIPP can reveal information about faint and diffuse structures before any cleaning iterations. BIPP does not perform any regularization, but we suggest methods to integrate the output of BIPP with CLEAN. The source code of BIPP is publicly released.

astro-ph.IM

Kodaikanal calcium images: Detection of plages, Fixing the heliographic coordinates and Estimation of Area

Kodaikanal Observatory is a veritable treasure trove of data, with the data repository covering almost 100 years of observations. For the years 1909-2007, we use calibrated Ca II K spectroheliograms from the Kodaikanal Observatory to detect the plages, fix their heliographic coordinates and also estimate the plage areas. We adopt the following procedure. After ensuring that, for all the years, Kodai calcium images have very negligible ellipcity, a circle is fitted and two central coordinates and radius of calcium images are determined uniquely. For each pixel of the calcium image, we then fix heliographic coordinates and extract plages along with their weighted average coordinates. The heliographic coordinates of these extracted plages are then compared with the heliographic coordinates of photospheric sunspots from the Greenwich sunspot database and chromospheric magnetic plages detected from the SOHO/MDI magnetograms. We find that the heliographic coordinates of calcium plages match very well with the heliographic coordinates of sunspots and magnetic plages authenticating our method of detection of plages and computation of positional coordinates. A code is developed in Python and all the nearly century scale plages data, with accurately estimated heliographic coordinates and areas, is available to the public.

astro-ph.SR

Jets blowing bubbles in the young radio galaxy 4C 31.04

We report the discovery of shocked molecular and ionized gas resulting from jet-driven feedback in the compact radio galaxy 4C 31.04 using near-IR imaging spectroscopy. 4C 31.04 is a $\sim 100$ pc double-lobed Compact Steep Spectrum source believed to be a very young AGN. It is hosted by a giant elliptical with a $\sim 10^{9}~\rm M_\odot$ multi-phase gaseous circumnuclear disc. We used high spatial resolution, adaptive optics-assisted $H$- and $K$-band integral field Gemini/NIFS observations to probe (1) the warm ($\sim 10^3~\rm K$) molecular gas phase, traced by ro-vibrational transitions of $\rm H_2$, and (2), the warm ionized medium, traced by the [Fe II]$_{1.644~\rm μm}$ line. The [Fe II] emission traces shocked gas ejected from the disc plane by a jet-blown bubble $300-400~\rm pc$ in diameter, whilst the $\rm H_2$ emission traces shock-excited molecular gas in the interior $\sim 1~\rm kpc$ of the circumnuclear disc. Hydrodynamical modelling shows that the apparent discrepancy between the extent of the shocked gas and the radio emission can occur when the brightest regions of the synchrotron-emitting plasma are temporarily halted by dense clumps, whilst less bright plasma can percolate through the porous ISM and form an energy-driven bubble that expands freely out of the disc plane. This bubble is filled with low surface-brightness plasma not visible in existing VLBI observations of 4C 31.04 due to insufficient sensitivity. Additional radial flows of jet plasma may percolate to $\sim \rm kpc$ radii in the circumnuclear disc, driving shocks and accelerating clouds of gas, giving rise to the $\rm H_2$ emission.

astro-ph.GA