Abstract
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.
Article PDF
References
E. Kovetz, P. C. Breysse, A. Lidz, J. Bock, C. M. Bradford, T.-C. Chang, S. Foreman, H. Padmanabhan, A. Pullen, D. Riechers, M. B. Silva, and E. Switzer, Bull. Am. Astron. Soc. 51, 101 (2019).
A. Liu, and J. R. Shaw, Publ. Astron. Soc. Pac. 132, 062001 (2020), arXiv: 1907.08211.
M. F. Morales, and J. S. B. Wyithe, Annu. Rev. Astron. Astrophys. 48, 127 (2010), arXiv: 0910.3010.
K. W. Masui, E. R. Switzer, N. Banavar, K. Bandura, C. Blake, L. M. Calin, T. C. Chang, X. Chen, Y. C. Li, Y. W. Liao, A. Natarajan, U. L. Pen, J. B. Peterson, J. R. Shaw, and T. C. Voytek, Astrophys. J. 763, L20 (2013), arXiv: 1208.0331.
E. R. Switzer, K. W. Masui, K. Bandura, L. M. Calin, T. C. Chang, X. L. Chen, Y. C. Li, Y. W. Liao, A. Natarajan, U. L. Pen, J. B. Peterson, J. R. Shaw, and T. C. Voytek, Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc.-Lett. 434, L46 (2013), arXiv: 1304.3712.
C. J. Anderson, N. J. Luciw, Y. C. Li, C. Y. Kuo, J. Yadav, K. W. Masui, T. C. Chang, X. Chen, N. Oppermann, Y. W. Liao, U. L. Pen, D. C. Price, L. Staveley-Smith, E. R. Switzer, P. T. Timbie, and L. Wolz, Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 476, 3382 (2018), arXiv: 1710.00424.
R. Ansari, J. E. Campagne, P. Colom, J. M. Le Goff, C. Magneville, J. M. Martin, M. Moniez, J. Rich, and C. Yeche, Astron. Astrophys. 540, A129 (2012), arXiv: 1108.1474.
K. Hirotani, Astrophys. J. 798, L40 (2015), arXiv: 1412.2876.
Y. Xu, J. Hamann, and X. Chen, Phys. Rev. D 94, 123518 (2016), arXiv: 1607.00817.
M. P. van Haarlem, M. W. Wise, A. W. Gunst, G. Heald, J. P. McKean, J. W. T. Hessels, A. G. de Bruyn, R. Nijboer, J. Swinbank, R. Fallows, M. Brentjens, A. Nelles, R. Beck, H. Falcke, R. Fender, J. Hörandel, L. V. E. Koopmans, G. Mann, G. Miley, H. Röttgering, B. W. Stappers, R. A. M. J. Wijers, S. Zaroubi, M. van den Akker, A. Alexov, J. Anderson, K. Anderson, A. van Ardenne, M. Arts, A. Asgekar, I. M. Avruch, F. Batejat, L. Bähren, M. E. Bell, M. R. Bell, I. van Bemmel, P. Bennema, M. J. Bentum, G. Bernardi, P. Best, L. Bîrzan, A. Bonafede, A. J. Boonstra, R. Braun, J. Bregman, F. Breitling, R. H. van de Brink, J. Broderick, P. C. Broekema, W. N. Brouw, M. Brüggen, H. R. Butcher, W. van Cappellen, B. Ciardi, T. Coenen, J. Conway, A. Coolen, A. Corstanje, S. Damstra, O. Davies, A. T. Deller, R. J. Dettmar, G. van Diepen, K. Dijkstra, P. Donker, A. Doorduin, J. Dromer, M. Drost, A. van Duin, J. Eislöffel, J. van Enst, C. Ferrari, W. Frieswijk, H. Gankema, M. A. Garrett, F. de Gasperin, M. Gerbers, E. de Geus, J. M. Grießmeier, T. Grit, P. Gruppen, J. P. Hamaker, T. Hassall, M. Hoeft, H. A. Holties, A. Horneffer, A. van der Horst, A. van Houwelingen, A. Huijgen, M. Iacobelli, H. Intema, N. Jackson, V. Jelic, A. de Jong, E. Juette, D. Kant, A. Karastergiou, A. Koers, H. Kollen, V. I. Kondratiev, E. Kooistra, Y. Koopman, A. Koster, M. Kuniyoshi, M. Kramer, G. Kuper, P. Lambropoulos, C. Law, J. van Leeuwen, J. Lemaitre, M. Loose, P. Maat, G. Macario, S. Markoff, J. Masters, R. A. McFadden, D. McKay-Bukowski, H. Meijering, H. Meulman, M. Mevius, E. Middelberg, R. Millenaar, J. C. A. Miller-Jones, R. N. Mohan, J. D. Mol, J. Morawietz, R. Morganti, D. D. Mulcahy, E. Mulder, H. Munk, L. Nieuwenhuis, R. van Nieuwpoort, J. E. Noordam, M. Norden, A. Noutsos, A. R. Offringa, H. Olofsson, A. Omar, E. Orrú, R. Overeem, H. Paas, M. Pandey-Pommier, V. N. Pandey, R. Pizzo, A. Polatidis, D. Rafferty, S. Rawlings, W. Reich, J. P. de Reijer, J. Reitsma, G. A. Renting, P. Riemers, E. Rol, J. W. Romein, J. Roosjen, M. Ruiter, A. Scaife, K. van der Schaaf, B. Scheers, P. Schellart, A. Schoenmakers, G. Schoonderbeek, M. Serylak, A. Shulevski, J. Sluman, O. Smirnov, C. Sobey, H. Spreeuw, M. Steinmetz, C. G. M. Sterks, H. J. Stiepel, K. Stuurwold, M. Tagger, Y. Tang, C. Tasse, I. Thomas, S. Thoudam, M. C. Toribio, B. van der Tol, O. Usov, M. van Veelen, A. J. van der Veen, S. ter Veen, J. P. W. Verbiest, R. Vermeulen, N. Vermaas, C. Vocks, C. Vogt, M. de Vos, E. van der Wal, R. van Weeren, H. Weggemans, P. Weltevrede, S. White, S. J. Wijnholds, T. Wilhelmsson, O. Wucknitz, S. Yatawatta, P. Zarka, A. Zensus, and J. van Zwieten, Astron. Astrophys. 556, A2 (2013), arXiv: 1305.3550.
S. J. Tingay, R. Goeke, J. D. Bowman, D. Emrich, S. M. Ord, D. A. Mitchell, M. F. Morales, T. Booler, B. Crosse, R. B. Wayth, C. J. Lonsdale, S. Tremblay, D. Pallot, T. Colegate, A. Wicenec, N. Kudryavtseva, W. Arcus, D. Barnes, G. Bernardi, F. Briggs, S. Burns, J. D. Bunton, R. J. Cappallo, B. E. Corey, A. Deshpande, L. Desouza, B. M. Gaensler, L. J. Greenhill, P. J. Hall, B. J. Hazelton, D. Herne, J. N. Hewitt, M. Johnston-Hollitt, D. L. Kaplan, J. C. Kasper, B. B. Kincaid, R. Koenig, E. Kratzenberg, M. J. Lynch, B. Mckinley, S. R. Mcwhirter, E. Morgan, D. Oberoi, J. Pathikulangara, T. Prabu, R. A. Remillard, A. E. E. Rogers, A. Roshi, J. E. Salah, R. J. Sault, N. Udaya-Shankar, F. Schlagenhaufer, K. S. Srivani, J. Stevens, R. Subrahmanyan, M. Waterson, R. L. Webster, A. R. Whitney, A. Williams, C. L. Williams, and J. S. B. Wyithe, Publ. Astron. Soc. Aust. 30, e007 (2013), arXiv: 1206.6945.
D. R. DeBoer, A. R. Parsons, J. E. Aguirre, P. Alexander, Z. S. Ali, A. P. Beardsley, G. Bernardi, J. D. Bowman, R. F. Bradley, C. L. Carilli, C. Cheng, E. L. Acedo, J. S. Dillon, A. Ewall-Wice, G. Fadana, N. Fagnoni, R. Fritz, S. R. Furlanetto, B. Glendenning, B. Greig, J. Grobbelaar, B. J. Hazelton, J. N. Hewitt, J. Hickish, D. C. Jacobs, A. Julius, M. C. Kariseb, S. A. Kohn, T. Lekalake, A. Liu, A. Loots, D. MacMahon, L. Malan, C. Malgas, M. Maree, Z. Martinot, N. Mathison, E. Matsetela, A. Mesinger, M. F. Morales, A. R. Neben, N. Patra, S. Pieterse, J. C. Pober, N. Razavi-Ghods, J. Ringuette, J. Robnett, K. Rosie, R. Sell, C. Smith, A. Syce, M. Tegmark, N. Thyagarajan, P. K. G. Williams, and H. Zheng, Publ. Astron. Soc. Pac. 129, 045001 (2017), arXiv: 1606.07473.
A. R. Parsons, D. C. Backer, G. S. Foster, M. C. H. Wright, R. F. Bradley, N. E. Gugliucci, C. R. Parashare, E. E. Benoit, J. E. Aguirre, D. C. Jacobs, C. L. Carilli, D. Herne, M. J. Lynch, J. R. Manley, and D. J. Werthimer, Astron. J. 139, 1468 (2010), arXiv: 0904.2334.
M. W. Eastwood, M. M. Anderson, R. M. Monroe, G. Hallinan, B. R. Barsdell, S. A. Bourke, M. A. Clark, S. W. Ellingson, J. Dowell, H. Garsden, L. J. Greenhill, J. M. Hartman, J. Kocz, T. J. W. Lazio, D. C. Price, F. K. Schinzel, G. B. Taylor, H. K. Vedantham, Y. Wang, and D. P. Woody, Astron. J. 156, 32 (2018), arXiv: 1711.00466.
K. Bandura, G. E Addison, M. Amiri, J. R. Bond, D. Campbell-Wilson, L. Connor, J.-F. Cliche, G. Davis, M. Deng, N. Denman, M. Dobbs, M. Fandino, K. Gibbs, A. Gilbert, M. Halpern, D. Hanna, A. D. Hincks, G. Hinshaw, C. Höfer, P. Klages, T. L. Landecker, K. Masui, J. Mena Parra, L. B. Newburgh, U. Pen, J. B. Peterson, A. Recnik, J. Richard Shaw, K. Sigurdson, M. Sitwell, G. Smecher, R. Smegal, K. Vanderlinde, and D. Wiebe, In Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) pathfinder: Proceedings Volume 9145, Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes V (SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation}, Montral, Canada, 2014.
X. Chen, Int. J. Mod. Phys. Conf. Ser. 12, 256 (2012), arXiv: 1212.6278.
X. L. Chen, Asso. Asia Pac. Phys. Soc. Bull. 25, 29 (2015).
J. Zhang, S. F. Zuo, R. Ansari, X. Chen, Y. C. Li, F. Q. Wu, J. E. Campagne, and C. Magneville, Res. Astron. Astrophys. 16, 158 (2016).
S. Das, C. J. Anderson, R. Ansari, J.-E. Campagne, D. Charlet, X. L. Chen, Z. P. Chen, A. J. Cianciara, P. Colom, Y. P. Cong, K. G. Gayley, J. C. Geng, J. Hao, Q. Z. Huang, C. S. Keith, C. Li, J. X. Li, Y. C. Li, C. Liu, T. Liu, C. Magneville, J. P. Marriner, J.-M. Martin, M. Moniez, T. M. Oxholm, U.-L. Pen, O. Perdereau, J. B. Peterson, H. Shi, L. Shu, A. Stebbins, S. J. Sun, P. T. Timbie, S. Torchinsky, G. S. Tucker, G. S. Wang, R. L. Wang, X. Wang, Y. G. Wang, F. Q. Wu, Y. D. Xu, K. F. Yu, J. Zhang, J. Y. Zhang, L. Zhang, J. L. Zhu, and S. F. Zuo, arXiv: 1806.04698.
L. B. Newburgh, K. Bandura, M. A. Bucher, T.-C. Chang, H. C. Chiang, J. F. Cliche, R. Dave, M. Dobbs, C. Clarkson, K. M. Ganga, T. Gogo, A. Gumba, N. Gupta, M. Hilton, B. Johnstone, A. Karastergiou, M. Kunz, D. Lokhorst, R. Maartens, S. Macpherson, M. Mdlalose, K. Moodley, L. Ngwenya, J. M. Parra, J. Peterson, O. Recnik, B. Saliwanchik, M. G. Santos, J. L. Sievers, O. Smirnov, P. Stronkhorst, R. Taylor, K. Vanderlinde, G. Van Vuuren, A. Weltman, and A. Witzemann, In HIRAX: A Probe of Dark Energy and Radio Transients: Proceedings Volume 9906, Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes VI (SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation), Edinburgh, UK, 2016. arXiv: 1607.02059.
S. Chatterjee, and S. Bharadwaj, Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 478, 2915 (2018), arXiv: 1804.00493.
R. Battye, I. Browne, T. Chen, C. Dickinson, S. Harper, L. Olivari, M. Peel, M. Remazeilles, S. Roychowdhury, P. Wilkinson, E. Abdalla, R. Abramo, E. Ferreira, A. Wuensche, T. Vilella, M. Caldas, G. Tancredi, A. Refregier, C. Monstein, F. Abdalla, A. Pourtsidou, B. Maffei, G. Pisano, and Y.-Z. Ma, arXiv: 1610.06826.
J. Zhang, R. Ansari, X. Chen, J. E. Campagne, C. Magneville, and F. Wu, Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 461, 1950 (2016), arXiv: 1606.03090.
R. Ansari, J. E. Campagne, D. Charlet, M. Moniez, C. Pailler, O. Perdereau, M. Taurigna, J. M. Martin, F. Rigaud, P. Colom, P. Abbon, C. Magneville, J. Pezzani, C. Viou, S. A. Torchinsky, Q. Huang, and J. Zhang, Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 493, 2965 (2020), arXiv: 1910.07956.
Q. Z. Huang, F. Q. Wu, and X. L. Chen, Sci. China-Phys. Mech. Astron. 62, 989511 (2019), arXiv: 1812.10084.
A. R. Thompson, J. M. Moran, and G. W. Jr. Swenson, Interferometry and Synthesis in Radio Astronomy, 3rd ed. (Springer, Cham, 2017).
F. Wu, Y. Wang, J. Zhang, W. Wang, B. Zhu, Y. Li, Q. Huang, J. Li, S. Zuo, C. Gao, L. Meng, Z. Yang, L. Yang, H. Shi, and X. Chen, In Site selection for the Tianlai experiment: Proceedings of the XXXIst URSI General Assembly and Scientific Symposium, Beijing, China (CIE), 17–23 August, 2014.
Z. P. Chen, R. L. Wang, J. Peterson, X. L. Chen, J. Y. Zhang, and H. L. Shi, In Design and analysis of a large cylinder antenna array in Tianlai: Proceedings Volume 9906, Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes VI (SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation), 2016, Edinburgh, UK, 2016.
A. J. Cianciara, C. J. Anderson, X. Chen, Z. Chen, J. Geng, J. Li, C. Liu, T. Liu, W. Lu, J. B. Peterson, H. Shi, C. N. Steffel, A. Stebbins, T. Stucky, S. Sun, P. T. Timbie, Y. Wang, F. Wu, and J. Zhang, J. Astron. Instrum. 06, 1750003 (2017), arXiv: 1705.04435.
S. Zuo, U. L. Pen, F. Wu, J. Li, A. Stebbins, Y. Wang, and X. Chen, Astron. J. 157, 34 (2019), arXiv: 1807.04590.
L. B. Newburgh, K. Bandura, M. A. Bucher, T.-C. Chang, H. C. Chiang, J. F. Cliche, R. Dav, M. Dobbs, C. Clarkson, K. M. Ganga, T. Gogo, A. Gumba, N. Gupta, M. Hilton, B. Johnstone, A. Karastergiou, M. Kunz, D. Lokhorst, R. Maartens, S. Macpherson, M. Mdlalose, K. Moodley, L. Ngwenya, J. M. Parra, J. Peterson, O. Recnik, B. Saliwanchik, M. G. Santos, J. L. Sievers, O. Smirnov, P. Stronkhorst, R. Taylor, K. Vanderlinde, G. van Vuuren, A. Weltman, and A. Witzemann, In Calibrating CHIME: A new radio interferometer to probe dark energy: Proceedings Volume 9145, Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes V (SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation), Montréal, Canada, 2014.
R. A. Perley, and B. J. Butler, Astrophys. J. Suppl. Ser. 230, 7 (2017), arXiv: 1609.05940.
R. Ansari, et al. (Cosmic Visions 21 cm Collaboration), arXiv: 1810.09572.
A. Slosar, Z. Ahmed, D. Alonso, M. A. Amin, E. J. Arena, K. Bandura, N. Battaglia, J. Blazek, P. Bull, E. Castorina, T.-C. Chang, L. Connor, R. Dave, C. Dvorkin, A. van Engelen, S. Ferraro, R. Flauger, S. Foreman, J. Frisch, D. Green, G. Holder, D. Jacobs, M. C. Johnson, J. S. Dillon, D. Karagiannis, A. A. Kaurov, L. Knox, A. Liu, M. Loverde, Y.-Z. Ma, K. W. Masui, T. McClintock, K. Moodley, M. Munchmeyer, L. B. Newburgh, C. Ng, A. Nomerotski, P. O’Connor, A. Obuljen, H. Padmanabhan, D. Parkinson, J. X. Prochaska, S. Rajendran, D. Rapetti, B. Saliwanchik, E. Schaan, N. Sehgal, J. R. Shaw, C. Sheehy, E. Sheldon, R. Shirley, E. Silverstein, T. Slatyer, A. Slosar, P. Stankus, A. Stebbins, P. T. Timbie, G. S. Tucker, W. Tyndall, F. Villaescusa Navarro, B. Wallisch, and M. White, Bull. Am. Astron. Soc. 51, 53 (2019).
H. J. Seo, S. Dodelson, J. Marriner, D. Mcginnis, A. Stebbins, C. Stoughton, and A. Vallinotto, Astrophys. J. 721, 164 (2010), arXiv: 0910.5007.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
The Tianlai arrays are operated with the support of the Astronomical Technology Center of National Astronomical Observatories of China (NAOC). The Tianlai cylinder array is built with the support of Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) (Grant No. 2012AA121701), and its survey is supported by MOST (Grant Nos. 2016YFE0100300, and 2018YFE0120800), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (Grant Nos. 11633004, 11473044, and 11653003), and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) (Grant No. QYZDJ-SSW-SLH017). Some on-site experiments are performed with support of the NSFC-CAS Joint Fund of Astronomy (Grant No. U1631118). The data analysis work is partially supported by the National Key R&D Program (Grant No. 2017YFA0402603), and the CAS Interdisciplinary Innovation Team (Grant No. JCTD-2019-05). Part of the computations are performed on the Tianhe-2 supercomputer with the support of NSFC (Grant No. U1501501) and the Tianhe-1 supercomputer. Work at UW-Madison and Fermilab is partially supported by the US National Science Foundation (NSF) Award (Grant No. AST-1616554). Fermilab is operated by Fermi Research Alliance, LLC (Grant No. DE-AC02-07CH11359) with the US Department of Energy. Authors affiliated with French institutions acknowledge partial support from Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) via IN2P3 & INSU, Observatoire de Paris and from Irfu/CEA. XueLei Chen acknowledges the support of the Australia-China Consortium for Astrophysical Research (ACAMAR) visiting fellowship, and the Univerity of West Australia, University of Curtin, University of Melbourne, and the niversity of New South Wales for their hospitality during his visit.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Li, J., Zuo, S., Wu, F. et al. The Tianlai Cylinder Pathfinder array: System functions and basic performance analysis. Sci. China Phys. Mech. Astron. 63, 129862 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11433-020-1594-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11433-020-1594-8