Status and capabilities of the Australian LBA

Phil Diamond

Chief, Astronomy & Space Science

Overview

• Overview of the LBA• Recent usage• Recent developments• eVLBI progress• ATNF user affiliations• Looking ahead

The Long Baseline Array (LBA)

• Operated as a National Facility by CSIRO, in close cooperation with Uni. of Tasmania & Curtin Uni.

• Core elements: ATCA (5x22m), Mopra (22m), Parkes (64m), Ceduna (30m), Hobart (26m)

• + Tidbinbilla (70m & 34m), Hart (26m), TIGO (6m), O’Higgins (9m), Warkworth (12m), … + ASKAP

• Traditionally 3 x ~1 week sessions per year, evolving toward more frequent, shorter sessions

• Observations in the 20, 13, 6, 3, 1cm bands• Max. bit-rate 1Gbps (ATNF), 512Mbps (elsewhere)• Disk-based recorders (with most data later streamed

to correlator) or/and eVLBI on a subset of the array • DiFX software correlator (Deller et al.  2007, 2011)

Radio Telescopes in AustraliaRadio Telescopes in Australia

x Katherine

x New Norciax Yarragadee

x ASKAP

x

The LBA in 2010

• Six sessions• March, May, July, October, November, December

• A total of 24 days• 34 observations

• 3x22GHz, 16x8.4GHz, 8x6.7GHz, 3x2.3GHz, 4x1.4GHz

• 15 projects -- led by 14 different PIs • 7 from Australia and 7 from overseas

• ~5% test and development time• The LBA is oversubscribed: about 2/3 of proposals are allocated some observing time

• Separate Parkes & Hobart (and new AuScope 3x12m array) participation in IVS

Observing time (in hrs) by year and band

2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

20cm 36 37 107 142 58 65 44

13cm 64 44 54 91 51 11 37

5/6cm 22 60 42 14 65 95 88

3cm 98 192 127 99 226 168 290

1cm 24 0 12 21 105 57 60

total 244 333 341 366 505 396 519

Recent LBA publications

• First VLBI Detection of the Radio Remnant of Supernova 1987A: Evidence for Small-scale Features

(Ng et al. 2011 ApJL in press, arXiv:1012.5092)

• The LBA Calibrator Survey of southern compact extragalactic radio sources - LCS1

(Petrov et al. 2011 PASA in press, arXiv:1012.2607)

• Evolution of the Parsec-scale Structure of PKS 1934-638 Revisited: First Science with the ASKAP and New Zealand Telescopes (Tzioumis et al. 2010 AJ 140, 1506)

• TANAMI: tracking active galactic nuclei with austral milliarcsecond interferometry . I. First-epoch 8.4 GHz images

(Ojha et al. 2010 A&A 519, A45)

• LBA observations of the maser cluster OH 330.953-0.182 (Caswell et al. 2010 MNRAS 402, 2649)

• Implications of a VLBI Distance to the Double Pulsar J0737-3039A/B (Deller et al. 2009 Science 323, 1327)

• Parsec-Scale Shocks in the Kiloparsec-Scale Jet of Centaurus A (Tingay & Lenc 2009 AJ 138, 808)

ATCA

Mopra

Parkes

Sydney

To Seattle 10 Gbps

eVLBI – Gbps links between existing ATNF sites

eVLBI Current Status

• Up to 1Gbps between At-Mp-Pa is available• Correlate on a computer cluster at Narrabri

• 128 Mbps to Hobart, and improvement in connection across Bass Strait to 1 Gbps expected in Q1 this year

• Successful eVLBI demonstrations with Shanghai, Kashima, JIVE, and HartRAO at 512Mbps

• 512Mbps link to Warkworth (NZ) now available • Participation in EXPReS and NEXPReS• 9th eVLBI Workshop held in Perth, Oct 2010

(see http://www.icrar.org/news/pastevents/e-vlbi2010)

Antennas 36 x 12m, three-axis designMax baseline 8 kmFrequency 700–1800 MHzFOV 30 deg2

Bandwidth 300 MHzChannels 16kPAF 10x10x2Tsys ~35 K Six element test array (BETA) in 2011

ASKAP at the Murchison Radio Observatory

Jan 2010 5 Sept/Oct 2010

ASKAP operational in Q2 2013

ASKAP + Ww

First fringes at 20cm between LBA and first ASKAP antenna and Warkworth 12m in New Zealand in April/May 2010.

Observations madeof Cen A and PKS 1934-638.

Ww to formally join LBA for observations at 1.4, 2.3 and 8.4 GHz.

MRO MRO Ceduna Hobart Parkes ATCA Tidbinbilla Warkworth

The Expanding LBAThe Expanding LBA

User affiliation by time allocated, 2005 - 2009

PI Affiliation ATCA Parkes Mopra

ATNF 41% 38% 12%

Non-ATNF Australian

24% 16% 40%

Overseas 35% 46% 48%

All investigators

ATCA Parkes Mopra

ATNF 32% 26% 12%

Non-ATNF Australian

25% 24% 25%

Overseas 43% 50% 63%

Future challenges & opportunities

• LBA data to be added to ATOA (on-line archive) this year• Hydrogen Maser on order for ASKAP• Addition of 20cm band to Ceduna planned • The LBA DASs will soon need replacing • Opportunities for collaboration with VLBA…

• cumvlbaobs.txt file indicates VLBA observes sources with dec < 0 for ~21% of time

• Best overlap with MK, OV, KP, PT, LA, FD

• …and EAVN and AuScope and space VLBI• New 34m antennas funded for Tidbinbilla• Improved eVLBI access expected

• for Hobart, Warkworth, and possibly Tid, but unlikely for Ceduna

More information

• Next proposal deadlines• June 15 and Dec 15

• Information about the LBA• www.atnf.csiro.au/vlbi

• Sensitivity calculator• www.atnf.csiro.au/vlbi/calculator_2009

• LBA data into on-line archive• atoa.atnf.csiro.au (coming soon)

Thank you

CSIRO/ATNFPhil DiamondChief, Astronomy & Space Science, CSIRO

Email: Philip.Diamond@csiro.auWeb: www.atnf.csiro.au

Contact UsPhone: 1300 363 400 or +61 3 9545 2176

Email: Enquiries@csiro.au Web: www.csiro.au