Performance of FAST with an Ultra-Wide Bandwidth Receiver at 500-3300 MHz
Abstract
The Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) has been running for several years. A new ultra-wide bandwidth (UWB) receiver, simultaneously covering 500-3300 MHz, has been mounted in the FAST feed cabin and has passed a series of observational tests. The whole UWB band is separated into four independent bands. Each band has 1,048,576 channels in total, resulting in a spectral resolution of 1 kHz. At 500-3300 MHz, the antenna gain is around 14.3-7.7 K Jy-1, the aperture efficiency is around 0.56-0.30, the system temperature is around 88-130 K, and the half-power beamwidth is around 7.6'-1.6'. The measured standard deviation of pointing accuracy is better than ~7.9″ when zenith angle is within 26.4°. The sensitivity and stability of the UWB receiver are confirmed to satisfy expectations through spectral observations, e.g., H I and OH. The FAST UWB receiver has already demonstrated good performance in capturing sensitive observations for various scientific goals.
- Publication:
-
Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics
- Pub Date:
- July 2023
- DOI:
- 10.1088/1674-4527/acd58e
- arXiv:
- arXiv:2304.11895
- Bibcode:
- 2023RAA....23g5016Z
- Keywords:
-
- instrumentation: detectors;
- telescopes;
- line: profiles;
- Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics;
- Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies
- E-Print:
- 11 pages, 7 figures, 2 tables, published in Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics