Design of the New Wideband Vivaldi Feed for the HERA Radio-Telescope Phase II

This paper presents the design of a new dual-polarised Vivaldi feed for the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) radio-telescope. This wideband feed has been developed to replace the Phase I dipole feed, and is used to illuminate a 14-m diameter dish. It aims to improve the science capabiliti...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2021-06
Main Authors: Fagnoni, Nicolas, Eloy de Lera Acedo, Drought, Nick, DeBoer, David R, Riley, Daniel, Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Carey, Steven, Parsons, Aaron R, the HERA Collaboration
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bandwidths
Broadband
Cables
Dipoles
Dual polarization (waves)
Ionization
Time response
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Summary:This paper presents the design of a new dual-polarised Vivaldi feed for the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) radio-telescope. This wideband feed has been developed to replace the Phase I dipole feed, and is used to illuminate a 14-m diameter dish. It aims to improve the science capabilities of HERA, by allowing it to characterise the redshifted 21-cm hydrogen signal from the Cosmic Dawn as well as from the Epoch of Reionization. This is achieved by increasing the bandwidth from 100 -- 200 MHz to 50 -- 250 MHz, optimising the time response of the antenna - receiver system, and improving its sensitivity. This new Vivaldi feed is directly fed by a differential front-end module placed inside the circular cavity and connected to the back-end via cables which pass in the middle of the tapered slot. We show that this particular configuration has minimal effects on the radiation pattern and on the system response.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.2009.07939