Collaborative Research: Commensal All-sky Imaging of Low-Frequency Transients with EPIC

Radio telescopes allow astronomers to see energetic events in the universe. New and planned radio telescopes use thousands of antennas. The antenna signals must be combined digitally in supercomputers to make images of the sky.

Reducing these computations will reduce the cost of future telescopes. The investigators have developed an algorithm that is faster and will implement it on the Long Wavelength Array in New Mexico. Using the images, the investigators will search for fast radio bursts, a recently discovered phenomenon.

This may help identify the type of objects that make these mysterious bursts. The team will also study other astronomical objects. They will extend the Research Experiences for Non-Traditional Undergraduates (RENTU) program.

Financial or family obligations can prevent students from participating in research. This program makes research more accessible for first-generation and under-represented student groups as well as veterans. This project addresses the goals of the Windows on the Universe Big Idea.

Modern low-frequency radio interferometers enable views of cosmic dawn and the time-variable sky. Driven by the need for wide fields, high sensitivity, and excellent imaging performance, these telescopes include hundreds or thousands of individual antennas. Processing so many signals is computationally expensive, particularly for science objectives that require all-sky imaging and high-temporal resolution.

This project seeks to advance a real-time, all-sky radio interferometer imaging architecture that reduces the standard computational scaling. The capabilities of an existing system currently implemented on the Long Wavelength Array station in Sevilleta, New Mexico will be expanded by improving efficiency and operating bandwidth, enabling response to external events and triggers, developing a transient detection module, coordinating commensal observing with other facilities, and monitoring sources of interest.

The imager will be used for fast-transient studies at low frequencies, including targets such as pulsars, prompt radio counterparts to gravitational wave events, interplanetary scintillation, and searches for fast radio bursts. The investigators will also extend the Research Experiences for Non-Traditional Undergraduates (RENTU) program at Arizona State University to include the University of New Mexico and Winona State University.

This program serves local students for whom financial or family obligations prevent from participating in existing research programs away from their home institutions.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.