Subsections
[Cr:2, Lc:1, Tt:0, Lb:3]
Knowledge of PHY303 and PHY637 is essential to follow this course. Lab hours will be used for hands on with data and also for hands on with a radio telescope expected to be set up at IISER Mohali as a part of the SWAN project. There will be 18 lectures and 6 lab session in this course.
- Signals in Radio Astronomy: Gaussian distributions, Gaussian random field, Wiener-Khinchin theorem, Central limit, Quasi-monochromatic and complex signals, cross-correlations.
- Radiation fundamentals: Brightness and flux, review of radiative transfer, blackbody radiation. Larmor's formula. Brightness temperature.
- Antennas: Antenna fundamentals, antenna patterns, signals and noise in radio astronomy.
- Interferometry and aperture synthesis: Van-Cittert-Zernike theorem, aperture synthesis, relation with the Fourier transform.
- Signal Path: Antennas, Receivers, Low Noise Amplifiers (LNAs), local oscillators (LOs), intermediate frequencies, the notion of baseband, and correlators.
- Two element interferometer, response to quasi-monochromatic radiation. Sensitivity and calibration for interferometers.
- Phased arrays. array theory, linear arrays as a grating, the Fourier transform approach to array patterns. Coherent and incoherent phased array. Comparison with interferometers.
- Imaging with arrays. Imaging with dipolar arrays, beam forming, adaptive beam forming.
- Analysis of signals from transient sources. Pulsars, dispersion measure. Fast radio bursts and other radio transients.
- Spectral line observations. calibration, gain calibration, bandshape calibration. Smoothing, continuum subtration, line profiles.
- Mapping in radio astronomy. relation between sky and aperture planes. weighting, tapering and beam shaping, gridding and interpolation. Other aspects of map making. Deconvolution. Dirty map and dirty beam. Clean. Beyond clean.
- Summary: Radio telescopes, today and tomorrow. The technical capabilities, sensitivity and the science that can be done at a given level.
- Synthesis Imaging in Radio Astronomy - II, A collection of lectures
from the Sixth NRAO/NMIMT Synthesis Imaging Summer School, Edited by G B Taylor, C L Carilli, and R A Perley (1998),http://www.phys.unm.edu/~gbtaylor/astr423/s98book.pdf
- Interferometry and Synthesis in Radio Astronomy, A. Richard ThompsonJames M. MoranGeorge W. Swenson Jr., Third edition, Springer
- Low Frequency Radio Astronomy, http://gmrt.ncra.tifr.res.in/gmrt_hpage/Users/doc/WEBLF/LFRA/index.html
- Essential Radio Astronomy, https://www.cv.nrao.edu/course/astr534/PDFnews.html
