This figure gives an overview of CABB, the
Compact Array Broad-band Backend
(Wilson et al.
2011), the heart of the
Australia Telescope Compact
Array (ATCA). CABB is the supercomputer that correlates the radio waves
received by all six ATCA antennas typically every 10 seconds over 2 x 2 GHz
of bandwidth. The wider the bandwidth, the more sensitive radio continuum
and spectro-polarimetric observations can be obtained. Each wide band allows
for 16 zoom bands that are sub-divided into 2048 channels each, providing
excellent velocity resolution for spectral lines studies in the cm-regime
(eg, HI, OH) and the mm-regime (eg, SiO, HCO+, CO).