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Realisation of a low frequency SKA Precursor: The Murchison Widefield Array

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Authors
Tingay, Steven
Emrich, David
Ord, Stephen
Crosse, Brian
Arcus, Wayne
Colegate, Timothy
Hall, Peter
Herne, David
Lynch, Mervyn
Schlagenhaufer, Franz
Tremblay, Steven
Wayth, Randall
Waterson, Mark
Williams, Andrew
Date
2012
Type
Conference Paper

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Tingay, S.J. and Goeke, R. and Hewitt, J.N. and Morgan, E. and Remillard, R.A. and Williams, C.L. and Bowman, J.D. and Emrich, D. and Ord, S.M. and Booler, T. and Crosse, B. and Pallot, D. and Arcus, W. and Colegate, T. and Hall, P.J. and Herne, D. and Lynch, M.J. and Schlagenhaufer, F. and Tremblay, S. and Wayth, R.B. and Waterson, M. and Mitchell, D.A. and Sault, R.J. and Webster, R.L. and Wyithe, J.S.B. and Morales, M.F. and Hazelton, B.J. and Wicenec, A. and Williams, A. and Barnes, D. and Bernardi, G. and Greenhill, L.J. and Kasper, J.C. and Briggs, F. and McKinley, B. and Bunton, J.D. and deSouza, L. and Koenig, R. and Pathikulangara, J. and Stevens, J. and Cappallo, R.J. and Corey, B.E. and Kincaid, B.B. and Kratzenberg, E. and Lonsdale, C.J. and McWhirter, S.R. and Rogers, A.E.E. and Salah, J.E. and Whitney, A.R. and Deshpande, A. and Prabu, T. and Roshi, A. and Udaya-Shankar, N. and Srivani, K.S. and Subrahmanyan, R. and Gaensler, B.M. and Johnston-Hollitt, M. and Kaplan, D.L. and Oberoi, D. 2012. Realisation of a low frequency SKA Precursor: The Murchison Widefield Array, in Proceedings of Resolving the Sky - Radio Interferometry: Past, Present and Future (RTS2012), Mar 17-20 2012. Manchester, UK: Proceedings of Science.
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Proceedings of Science
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Resolving the Sky - Radio Interferometry: Past, Present and Future - RTS2012
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This article is published under the Open Access publishing model and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ Please refer to the licence to obtain terms for any further reuse or distribution of this work.

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Abstract

The Murchison Widefield Array is a low frequency (80 - 300 MHz) SKA Precursor, comprising 128 aperture array elements distributed over an area of 3 km diameter. The MWA is located at the extraordinarily radio quiet Murchison Radioastronomy Observatory in the mid-west of Western Australia, the selected home for the Phase 1 and Phase 2 SKA low frequency arrays. The MWA science goals include: 1) detection of fluctuations in the brightness temperature of the diffuse redshifted 21 cm line of neutral hydrogen from the epoch of reionisation; 2) studies of Galactic and extragalactic processes based on deep, confusion-limited surveys of the full sky visible to the array; 3) time domain astrophysics through exploration of the variable radio sky; and 4) solar imaging and characterisation of the heliosphere and ionosphere via propagation effects on background radio source emission. This paper will focus on a brief discussion of the as-built MWA system, highlighting several novel characteristics of the instrument, and a brief progress report (as of June 2012) on the final construction phase. Practical completion of the MWA is expected in November 2012, with commissioning commencing from approximately August 2012 and operations commencing near mid 2013. A brief description of recent science results from the MWA prototype instrument is given.