Absolving the SSINS of Precision Interferometric Radio Data: A New Technique for Mitigating Faint Radio Frequency Interference

We introduce a new pipeline for analyzing and mitigating radio frequency interference (RFI), which we call Sky-Subtracted Incoherent Noise Spectra (ssins). ssins is designed to identify and remove faint RFI below the single baseline thermal noise by employing a frequency-matched detection algorithm...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 2019-11, Vol.131 (1005), p.114507
Main Authors: Wilensky, Michael J., Morales, Miguel F., Hazelton, Bryna J., Barry, Nichole, Byrne, Ruby, Roy, Sumit
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
dark ages, reionization, first stars
methods: data analysis
methods: statistical
Noise
Radio frequency
techniques: interferometric
telescopes
Television
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:We introduce a new pipeline for analyzing and mitigating radio frequency interference (RFI), which we call Sky-Subtracted Incoherent Noise Spectra (ssins). ssins is designed to identify and remove faint RFI below the single baseline thermal noise by employing a frequency-matched detection algorithm on baseline-averaged amplitudes of time-differenced visibilities. We demonstrate the capabilities of ssins using the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) in Western Australia. We successfully image aircraft flying over the array via digital television reflection detected using ssins and summarize an RFI occupancy survey of MWA Epoch of Reionization data. We describe how to use ssins with new data using a documented, publicly available implementation with comprehensive usage tutorials.
ISSN:0004-6280
1538-3873
DOI:10.1088/1538-3873/ab3cad