Project
Personnel
Background
Current work
Location
1kT dedicated web site
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Project Personnel
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Background
The SKA is the next-generation
centimetre-wave radio telescope, with a proposed collecting area at low frequencies (150 MHz to 1.5 GHz) of roughly 1 km2
(or 106 m2) - the equivalent of more than one hundred
dishes of 100 m diameter. In contrast, the largest and most sensitive existing
array has a physical area approximately one hundred times smaller than this. The SKA
telescope project involves collaborative strategic research with partners
from The Netherlands, Canada, India and the USA; overall co-ordination
is provided by working groups within the International Astronomical Union
(IAU), the International Union of Radio Science (URSI), and the OECD Megascience
Forum. The detailed specifications of the instrument are currently being
established and, on present estimates, the SKA could be completed in the
decade 2010-2020.
The Australian contributory project is being supported by both the ATNF
and the MNRF. The main thrust of the associated research
is in the area of interference mitigation and involves several overseas collaborators. In addition, research is being conducted into possible SKA systems, particularly into the defi
nition of a
n
optimum antenna array configuration and the study of dynamic range issues.
Current Work
In work so far, predictions have been made of how the radio sky might appear
at flux density limits 100 times as faint as those of known surveys. In
addition, studies are underway of the response functions of large, many-element,
interferometers operating in a variety of configurations. A future aim is to combine these two research areas and use simulated observations of
the predicted radio sky for various model telescope array configurations to assist in determining an optimum telescope design.
In the area of array technology, research is proceeding in collaboration
with the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) in the area of wide-band
microstrip antenna arraying and in the area of "double
stacking" of array elements, allowing dual-band operation. The Research and Development support contract with RMIT was renewed in December 1998 for a further two years.
In the international SKA planning area, the major event was a technical
workshop held at the ATNF in December 1997. Approximately 100 people attended,
with 31 international visitors, as well as a number of representatives from
Australian universities and industry, participating. The aim of the meeting
was to discuss the current technical research being undertaken and to identify
areas requiring further effort. The
full program, some of the discussion papers, and the conclusions are
available on the web. A summary paper, "Summary of the Sub-microJansky Radio Sky workshop" by Hopkins et al. has also been published.
Location
With considerable assistance from the Western Australian Government, an initial survey has
been made of the Upper Gascoyne-Murchison area of Western Australia, and two possible sites for the SKA have been found. Preliminary work has shown that, at these sites, there is negligible
ground-based radio interference within a 100 km-diameter zone. A further site near Meekatharra in Western Australia and one site in South Australia are also being investigated.
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