The Murchison Widefield Array: The Square Kilometre Array Precursor at Low Radio Frequencies

By Steven J. Tingay, R. Goeke, Judd D. Bowman, D. Emrich, S. Ord, D. Mitchell, Miguel F. Morales, T. Booler, B. Crosse, Randall B. Wayth and 51 more. Publications Astronomical Society of Australia, 2012

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Abstract The Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) is one of three Square Kilometre Array Precursor telescopes and is located at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory in the Murchison Shire of the mid-west of Western Australia, a location chosen for its extremely low levels of radio frequency interference. The MWA operates at low radio frequencies, 80–300 MHz, with a processed bandwidth of 30.72 MHz for both linear polarisations, and consists of 128 aperture arrays (known as tiles) distributed over a ~3-km diameter area. Novel hybrid hardware/software correlation and a real-time imaging and calibration systems comprise the MWA signal processing backend. In this paper, the as-built MWA is described both at a system and sub-system level, the expected performance of the array is presented, and the science goals of the instrument are summarised.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

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Citations in the corpus

The Upgraded GMRT:Opening New Windows on the Radio Universe (2017, background): “4, 25 AUGUST 2017 708 system; (6) Sophisticated, next-generation monitor and control system; (7) Matching improvements in mechanical systems, electrical and civil infrastructure and computing resources; (8) Implementation of the upgrade with minimal disruption to the availability of the existing GMR”
GaLactic and Extragalactic All-sky Murchison Widefield Array (GLEAM) survey - I. A low-frequency extragalactic catalogue (2016, methodology): “…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).”
Upper Limits on the 21 cm Epoch of Reionization Power Spectrum from One Night with LOFAR (2017, methodology): “To date, a number of experiments have been seeking to measure this high-redshift 21-cm emission, using LOFAR (van Haarlem et al. 2013), the GMRT (Paciga et al. 2011), the MWA (Tingay et al. 2013; Bowman et al. 2013), PAPER (Parsons et al. 2010) and the 21CMA (Zheng et al. 2016).”
New Limits on 21cm EoR From PAPER-32 Consistent with an X-Ray Heated IGM at z=7.7 (2013, background): “Other such telescopes include the Giant Metre-wave Radio Telescope (GMRT; Paciga et al. 2013)12, the LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR; Yatawatta et al. 2013)13, and the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA; Bowman et al. 2013; Tingay et al. 2013)14.”
Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) (2016, methodology): “This architecture directly inherits from the PAPER and MWA experiments.”
Multi-messenger observations of a binary neutron star merger (2017, background): “…Array (LOFAR; van Haarlem et al. 2013), the Long Wavelength Array (LWA1), MeerKAT (Goedhart et al. 2017a), the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA; Tingay et al. 2013), Parkes-64 m (SUPERB; Bailes et al. 2017a; Keane et al. 2017), Sardinia Radio Telescope (SRT; Prandoni et al. 2017), VLA, VLA Low…”
WHAT NEXT-GENERATION 21 cm POWER SPECTRUM MEASUREMENTS CAN TEACH US ABOUT THE EPOCH OF REIONIZATION (2013, methodology): “In the appendix, we present the resultant sensitivities and achievable constraints on the astrophysical parameters of interest for several other 21 cm telescopes: PAPER, the MWA, LOFAR, and a concept design for the SKA-Low Phase 1.”
LOFAR: The LOw-Frequency ARray (2013, background): “…(10−88 MHz) (see Kassim et al. 2010; Lazio et al. 2010; Taylor et al. 2012, and examples therein) and MWA (80−300 MHz) (see Rightley et al. 2009; Oberoi et al. 2011; Bowman et al. 2013; Tingay et al. 2013b, and examples therein), both of which provide powerful solar observing capabilities.”
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).”