The Low-Frequency Environment of the Murchison Widefield Array: Radio-Frequency Interference Analysis and Mitigation
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2015-02-16
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Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia
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CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS
Melbourne Authors
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Melbourne School of Population and Global Health
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School of Physics
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Journal Article
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Offringa, A. R., Wayth, R. B., Hurley-Walker, N., Kaplan, D. L., Barry, N., Beardsley, A. P., Bell, M. E., Bernardi, G., Bowman, J. D., Briggs, F., Callingham, J. R., Cappallo, R. J., Carroll, P., Deshpande, A. A., Dillon, J. S., Dwarakanath, K. S., Ewall-Wice, A., Feng, L., For, B. Q. ,... Zheng, Q. (2015). The Low-Frequency Environment of the Murchison Widefield Array: Radio-Frequency Interference Analysis and Mitigation. Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia, 32, https://doi.org/10.1017/pasa.2015.7.
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The Murchison Widefield Array is a new low-frequency interferometric radio telescope built in Western Australia at one of the locations of the future Square Kilometre Array. We describe the automated radio-frequency interference detection strategy implemented for the Murchison Widefield Array, which is based on theaoflaggerplatform, and present 72–231 MHz radio-frequency interference statistics from 10 observing nights. Radio-frequency interference detection removes 1.1% of the data. Radio-frequency interference from digital TV is observed 3% of the time due to occasional ionospheric or atmospheric propagation. After radio-frequency interference detection and excision, almost all data can be calibrated and imaged without further radio-frequency interference mitigation efforts, including observations within the FM and digital TV bands. The results are compared to a previously published Low-Frequency Array radio-frequency interference survey. The remote location of the Murchison Widefield Array results in a substantially cleaner radio-frequency interference environment compared to Low-Frequency Array’s radio environment, but adequate detection of radio-frequency interference is still required before data can be analysed. We include specific recommendations designed to make the Square Kilometre Array more robust to radio-frequency interference, including: the availability of sufficient computing power for radio-frequency interference detection; accounting for radio-frequency interference in the receiver design; a smooth band-pass response; and the capability of radio-frequency interference detection at high time and frequency resolution (second and kHz-scale respectively).