The Murchison Widefield Array: Design Overview

By C. Lonsdale, R. Cappallo, Miguel F. Morales, Frank H. Briggs, L. Benkevitch, Judd D. Bowman, J. Bunton, S. Burns, B. Corey, L. deSouza and 38 more. Proceedings of the IEEE, 2009

363 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The Murchison Widefield Array is a dipole-based aperture array synthesis telescope designed to operate in the 80-300 MHz frequency range. It is capable of a wide range of science investigations but is initially focused on three key science projects: detection and characterization of three-dimensional brightness temperature fluctuations in the 21 cm line of neutral hydrogen during the epoch of reionization (EoR) at redshifts from six to ten; solar imaging and remote sensing of the inner heliosphere via propagation effects on signals from distant background sources; and high-sensitivity exploration of the variable radio sky. The array design features 8192 dual-polarization broadband active dipoles, arranged into 512 ldquotilesrdquo comprising 16 dipoles each. The tiles are quasi-randomly distributed over an aperture 1.5 km in diameter, with a small number of outliers extending to 3 km. All tile-tile baselines are correlated in custom field-programmable gate array based hardware, yielding a Nyquist-sampled instantaneous monochromatic uv coverage and unprecedented point spread function quality. The correlated data are calibrated in real time using novel position-dependent self-calibration algorithms. The array is located in the Murchison region of outback Western Australia. This region is characterized by extremely low population density and a superbly radio-quiet environment, allowing full exploitation of the instrumental capabilities.

Subfields: Aerospace Engineering, Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

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Citations in the corpus

Enhanced Global Signal of Neutral Hydrogen Due to Excess Radiation at Cosmic Dawn (2018, background): “Many experiments, such as the Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR) (van Haarlem et al. 2013), the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) (Koopmans et al. 2015), the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) (Lonsdale et al. 2009) and the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) (DeBoer et al. 2017), are designed to study the”
VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea (VVV): The public ESO near-IR variability survey of the Milky Way (2009, background): “The Murchison Widefield Array (Lonsdale et al., 2009) will soon open up the field of surveys of radio transients in the southern hemisphere, likely makinginfrared variability surveys of the southern part of the Galaxy interesting for interpr ting their results.”
A review of solar type III radio bursts (2014, background): “In Western Australia there is the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) (Lonsdale et al., 2009; Bowman et al., 2013) that is a low-frequency radio telescope operating between 80 MHz and 300 MHz, is one of the precursors to the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) and has recently started to observe the Sun…”
LOFAR: The LOw-Frequency ARray (2013, background): “…in three currently ongoing low-frequency array development projects: the European LOFAR project described here; the US-led, Long Wavelength Array (LWA; Ellingson et al. 2009, 2013); and the international Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) collaboration (Lonsdale et al. 2009; Tingay et al. 2013a).”
IMAGING THE EPOCH OF REIONIZATION: LIMITATIONS FROM FOREGROUND CONFUSION AND IMAGING ALGORITHMS (2011, background): “Details of the MWA telescope design may be found in Lonsdale et al. (2009).”
Reionization and Cosmology with 21-cm Fluctuations (2009, background): “4http://www.lofar.org/ 1.2.4 MWA The Murchison Widefield Array5 (Lonsdale et al. 2009) is currently under construction in western Australia at the radio quiet Murchison Radio Observatory (MWA and PAPER are walking distance apart).”
The GMRT Epoch of Reionization experiment: a new upper limit on the neutral hydrogen power spectrum at z≈ 8.6 (2010, background): “Several programs are underway to study the EoR in the VHF band including LOFAR1 (Kassim et al. 2004; Röttgering et al. 2006; for the EoR case see, e.g., Zaroubi & Silk 2005; Harker et al. 2010), MWA2 (Lonsdale et al. 2009; for the EoR case see, e.g., Morales et al. 2006; Bowman et al. 2006; Lidz et”
GaLactic and Extragalactic All-sky Murchison Widefield Array (GLEAM) survey - I. A low-frequency extragalactic catalogue (2016, background): “…include the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR; van Haarlem et al. 2013), the Precision Array for Probing the Epoch of Reionization (PAPER; Parsons et al. 2010), the Long Wavelength Array (LWA; Ellingson et al. 2013), and the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA; Lonsdale et al. 2009; Tingay et al. 2013).”
BRIGHT SOURCE SUBTRACTION REQUIREMENTS FOR REDSHIFTED 21 cm MEASUREMENTS (2010, methodology): “This includes the Murchison Wideﬁeld Array [MWA] (Mitchell et al. 2008; Lonsdale et al. 2009; Bowman et al. 2006), Precision Array to Probe Epoch of Reionization [PA-PER] (Backer et al. 2007; Parsons et al. 2009), Low Frequency Array [LOFAR] (Harker et al. 2010; Jeli´c et al. 2008; Labropoulos et…”
THE IMPACT OF POINT-SOURCE SUBTRACTION RESIDUALS ON 21 cm EPOCH OF REIONIZATION ESTIMATION (2012, methodology): “…used to calibrate the instrument (e.g., Murchison Widefield Array—MWA,1 Precision Array for Probing the Epoch of Reionization—PAPER,2 Low Frequency Array—LOFAR,3 Long Wavelength Array—LWA;4 Lonsdale et al. 2009; Tingay et al. 2012; Parsons et al. 2010; Stappers et al. 2011; Ellingson et al. 2009).”
Probing the first stars and black holes in the early Universe with the Dark Ages Radio Explorer (DARE) (2008, background): “…MHz, such as the Experiment to Detect the Global Epoch of Reionization Signal (EDGES, Bowman & Rogers 2010), the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA, Lonsdale et al. 2009), the Precision Array to Probe the Epoch of Reionization (PAPER, Parsons et al. 2010), and the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR,…”
The Murchison Widefield Array: The Square Kilometre Array Precursor at Low Radio Frequencies (2012, methodology): “Previously, Lonsdale et al. (2009) described the conceptual underpinnings of the MWA design, the advantages of a large-N, small-D architecture for radio interferometers, and some of the challenges inherent in the data processing for this type of telescope.”
Science with the Murchison Widefield Array (2012, methodology): “Details of the technical design and specifications of the MWA as built are presented in a companion article (Tingay et al. 2013), which supercedes the earlier Lonsdale et al. (2009) description of plans for the instrument.”
A simulation-calibrated limit on the H i power spectrum from the GMRT Epoch of Reionization experiment (2013, background): “The Murchison Widefield Array (MWA; Lonsdale et al. 2009) is expected to be able to detect both the amplitude and slope of the power spectrum with a signal-to-noise ratio >10 (Beardsley et al. 2013).”
A PER-BASELINE, DELAY-SPECTRUM TECHNIQUE FOR ACCESSING THE 21 cm COSMIC REIONIZATION SIGNATURE (2012, background): “…observing, including the Giant Metre-wave Radio Telescope (GMRT; Pen et al. 2009)1, the LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR; Rottgering et al. 2006)2, the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA; Lonsdale et al. 2009)3, and the Precision Array for Probing the Epoch of Reionization (PAPER; Parsons et al. 2010)4.”
LOFAR 150-MHz observations of the Boötes field: catalogue and source counts (2016, background): “Recently, the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA; Lonsdale et al. 2009; Tingay et al. 2013), operating at 72–231 MHz, has yielded the GaLactic and Extragalactic All-sky MWA survey (GLEAM; Wayth et al. 2015).”