SKA Non-imaging Processing Software 2025 - 2027
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Oxford
Department Name: Oxford Physics
Abstract
This project is to support the component of the SKA that will enable the search of the entire sky visible from each telescope site for pulsars and time-domain transients. The SKA is made up of two telescopes, MID and LOW, each being an interferometer comprising a large number of receiving elements: in the case of MID, reflective parabolic dishes, and in the case of LOW arrays of dipoles.
Obtaining the maximum survey sensitivity requires the coherent sum of as many of elements of the telescope as possible; this generates narrow sensitivity "beams" on the sky. To cover the entire visible sky from the two SKA sites within a reasonable period of time requires simultaneously generating large numbers of beams. For MID, 1500 tied-array beams will be searched. For LOW, 500 tied-array beams will be searched. Each beam will be searched for pulsar candidates independently, and the output candidates will be brought together to exclude spurious signals.
This proposal supports the construction of this component of the telescope, which involves delivery highly efficient software for the discovery of pulsars and time-domain fast radio transients.
Obtaining the maximum survey sensitivity requires the coherent sum of as many of elements of the telescope as possible; this generates narrow sensitivity "beams" on the sky. To cover the entire visible sky from the two SKA sites within a reasonable period of time requires simultaneously generating large numbers of beams. For MID, 1500 tied-array beams will be searched. For LOW, 500 tied-array beams will be searched. Each beam will be searched for pulsar candidates independently, and the output candidates will be brought together to exclude spurious signals.
This proposal supports the construction of this component of the telescope, which involves delivery highly efficient software for the discovery of pulsars and time-domain fast radio transients.
