First results from the REAL-time Transient Acquisition backend (REALTA) at the Irish LOFAR station

Murphy, P. C.; Callanan, Paul; McCauley, J.; McKenna, D. J.; Ó Fionnagáin, D.; Louis, C. K.; Redman, M. P.; Cañizares, L. A.; Carley, E. P.; Maloney, S. A.; Coghlan, B.; Daly, M.; Scully, J.; Dooley, J.; Gajjar, V.; Giese, C.; Brennan, A.; Keane, E. F.; Maguire, C. A.; Quinn, J.; Mooney, S.; Ryan, A. M.; Walsh, J.; Jackman, C. M.; Golden, A.; Ray, T. P.; Doyle, J. G.; Rigney, J.; Burton, M.; Gallagher, P. T.

First results from the REAL-time Transient Acquisition backend (REALTA) at the Irish LOFAR station

cb

Files

aa40415-21.pdf(21.5 MB)

Published Version

Date

2021-10-28

Authors

Murphy, P. C.

Callanan, Paul

McCauley, J.

McKenna, D. J.

Ó Fionnagáin, D.

Louis, C. K.

Redman, M. P.

Cañizares, L. A.

Carley, E. P.

Maloney, S. A.

Show 10 more

Publisher

EDP Sciences

Published Version

10.1051/0004-6361/202140415

Abstract

Modern radio interferometers such as the LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR) are capable of producing data at hundreds of gigabits to terabits per second. This high data rate makes the analysis of radio data cumbersome and computationally expensive. While high performance computing facilities exist for large national and international facilities, that may not be the case for instruments operated by a single institution or a small consortium. Data rates for next generation radio telescopes are set to eclipse those currently in operation, hence local processing of data will become all the more important. Here, we introduce the REAL-time Transient Acquisition backend (REALTA), a computing backend at the Irish LOFAR station (I-LOFAR) which facilitates the recording of data in near real-time and post-processing. We also present first searches and scientific results of a number of radio phenomena observed by I-LOFAR and REALTA, including pulsars, fast radio bursts, rotating radio transients, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, Jupiter, and the Sun.

Keywords

Instrumentation , Miscellaneous , Methods: data analysis , Telescopes

Citation

Murphy, P. C., Callanan, P., McCauley, J., McKenna, D. J., Ó Fionnagáin, D., Louis, C. K., Redman, M. P., Cañizares, L. A., Carley, E. P., Maloney, S. A., Coghlan, B., Daly, M., Scully, J., Dooley, J., Gajjar, V., Giese, C., Brennan, A., Keane, E. F., Maguire, C. A., Quinn, J., Mooney, S., Ryan, A. M., Walsh, J., Jackman, C. M., Golden, A., Ray, T. P., Doyle, J. G., Rigney, J., Burton, M. and Gallagher, P. T. (2021) ‘'First results from the REAL-time Transient Acquisition backend (REALTA) at the Irish LOFAR station', Astronomy & Astrophysics, 655, A16 (12pp). doi: 10.1051/0004-6361/202140415