|
Abstract:
The Molonglo Cross Telescope was inaugurated over 50 years ago and has
passed through several upgrades during its operating life to enable
new science output from what remains the largest collecting area in
the Southern Hemisphere. Most recently, the "UTMOST" upgrade
commissioned a new high-speed digital correlator/beamformer backend
for the facility, transforming it into a 24/7 machine for finding and
following up fast radio bursts (FRBs) and pulsars. A second stage of
the UTMOST upgrade, breathing new life into the 40-year-dormant
North-South arm of the cross, is currently underway and will provide
both the ability to localise detected FRBs and pulsars, as well as a
further increase in sensitivity and field-of-view. In this talk, I
will describe the current operations and recent results of UTMOST, as
well as commissioning results from the modular and expandable
UTMOST-2D system and a comparison of UTMOST-2D's capabilities against
other radio interferometers.
(Image credit: Swinburne University of Technology)
|
