Characterization of a dense aperture array for radio astronomy

¹ Station de radioastronomie de Nançay, Observatoire de Paris, CNRS, 75014 Paris, France
e-mail: steve.torchinsky@obspm.fr
² Onsala Space Observatory, Chalmers University of Technology, 41258 Gothenburg, Sweden
³ Astrophysics, University of Oxford, Denys Wilkinson Building, Keble Road, Oxford OX1 3RH, UK
⁴ Department of Physics and Electronics, Rhodes University, PO Box 94, 6140 Grahamstown, South Africa
⁵ Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of the Western Cape, 7535 Cape Town, South Africa
⁶ SKA South Africa, 7405 Cape Town, South Africa

Received: 9 June 2015
Accepted: 16 February 2016

Abstract

EMBRACE@Nançay is a prototype instrument consisting of an array of 4608 densely packed antenna elements creating a fully sampled, unblocked aperture. This technology is proposed for the Square Kilometre Array and has the potential of providing an extremely large field of view making it the ideal survey instrument. We describe the system, calibration procedures, and results from the prototype.