TUNA Lunch Talk:

Glenn Jones

NRAO/Caltech

Instrumentation for wide bandwidth transient observations

October 20

12:10PM, Room 230, NRAO, Edgemont Road

Abstract:

Our group has recently equipped a 34 meter antenna with a novel wide bandwidth radiometer and digital signal processor as part of the Goldstone Apple Valley Radio Telescope (GAVRT) educational outreach project. I will discuss the unique features and challenges of this radiometer and present some initial performance data. I will then describe the digital signal processor which was designed to make use of the enormous instantaneous bandwidth provided by this system. The signal processor is based around the CASPER FPGA hardware and tools, resulting in a very flexible system. The wide instantaneous bandwidth available makes this system uniquely suited for studying transient radio pulses. In particular, studying giant radio pulses from the Crab Pulsar with high time resolution and wide bandwidths is one of the driving goals of the system. A configuration of the digital signal processor has been developed which provides the capability of recording the raw voltage data from eight 1 GHz baseband signals for up to one second. In addition, a real time incoherent dedispersion system provides a sensitive trigger for detecting giant pulses with a known dispersion measure. Crab giant pulses captured with this system will be presented. Finally, I will discuss plans for more general transient observations from unknown sources.