The Australia Telescope Compact Array Broadband Backend (CABB): Description & First Results ⋆

By W. Wilson, R. Ferris, P. Axtens, A. Brown, E. Davis, G. Hampson, M. Leach, P. Roberts, S. Saunders, B. Koribalski and 34 more. 2011

203 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Here we describe the Compact Array Broadband Backend (CABB) and present first results obtained with the upgraded Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA). The 16-fold increase in observing bandwidth, from 2×128 MHz to 2×2048 MHz, high bit sampling, and addition of 16 zoom windows (each divided into a further 2048 channels) provide major improvements for all ATCA observations. The benefits of the new system are: (1) hugely increased radio continuum and polarization sensitivity as well as image fidelity, (2) substantially improved capability to search for and map emission and absorption lines over large velocity ranges, (3) simultaneous multi-line and continuum observations, (4) increased sensitivity, survey speed and dynamic range due to high-bit sampling, and (5) high velocity resolution, while maintaining full polarization output. The new CABB system encourages all observers to make use of both spectral line and continuum data to achieve their full potential. Given the dramatic increase of the ATCA capabilities in all bands (ranging from 1.1 to 105 GHz) CABB enables scientific projects that were not feasible before the upgrade, such as simultaneous observations of multiple spectral lines, on-the-fly mapping, fast follow-up of radio transients (e.g., the radio afterglow of new supernovae) and maser observations at high velocity resolution and full polarization. The first science results presented here include wide-band spectra, high dynamic-range images, and polarization measurements, highlighting the increased capability and discovery potential of the ATCA.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3e5176d6616761c2a7289e0557f48f0b27f52e1b

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Citations in the corpus

The SUrvey for Pulsars and Extragalactic Radio Bursts – II. New FRB discoveries and their follow-up. (2017, methodology): “Radio imaging observations were performed using the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA; Wilson et al. 2011), VLA, the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT; Ananthakrishnan 1995) and the e-Merlin radio telescope (Garrington et al. 2004), spanning 4–8 GHz and 1–1.4 GHz.”
The 'universal' radio/X-ray flux correlation : the case study of the black hole GX 339-4 (2012, methodology): “The ATCA was upgraded in April 2009 with the new Compact Array Broadband Backend (CABB) system (Wilson et al. 2011) resulting in significant improvement in sensitivity (an increase in bandwidth from 128 MHz to 2 GHz).”
Complex Faraday depth structure of active galactic nuclei as revealed by broad‐band radio polarimetry (2012, methodology): “Using the new Compact Array Broad-band Backend (CABB) system (Wilson et al. 2011) on the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA), spectropolarimetric studies of these AGN were performed using 2 GHz of instantaneous bandwidth on the upgraded receiver system from 1.1 to 3.1 GHz.1 All-sky RM surveys…”