Basics

of
Radio Interferometry
by Armin Falb
member of Starkenburg-Sternwarte and ERAC

Second International Convention

Of the European Radio Astronomy Club
And the S.E.T.I. League USA
Heppenheim, September 9-10, 2000
 What will we talk about?

+ Motivation for Radio Interferometry

+ Basic Ideas
+ The Two-Element Interferometer
(basic interferometer equations)
+ Aperture Synthesis
+ Amateur Radio Astronomy and Interferometry

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 Motivation for Radio Interferometry

+ angular resolution of a telescope ∝ λ/D

+ optical telescopes: 20 marcsec
(D=5m, λ=500nm)
+ radio telescopes: 1 arcmin
(D=100m, λ=2.8cm)
+ extra-galactic radio sources:
fine scale structures < 1 marcsec
(1marcsec @ λ = 2.8cm ⇒ D = 6000km)

+ filled aperture telescopes limited to D ≈ 100m

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 The Solution

+ There is a way to build big radio telescopes:

! take several “small” telescopes in great
distance from one another
! combine their output signals in an
appropriate way
! do some computing on the results

That is a very simplistic view

of a radio interferometer

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 Basic ideas I

+ fixed aperture antenna composed

from N elemental areas
+ each element n is contributing a signal
In cos(ωt+Φn)
+ vectorial addition of all signals yields:
N = 16
N N
P ∝ ½ ⋅ ∑∑ IjIkcos(Φj − Φk)
j=1 k =1
N N -1 N
= ½ ⋅ ∑ Ij² + ∑ ∑ I I cos(Φ − Φ )
j k j k
j=1 j=1 k = j+1

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 Basic Ideas II

+ cross terms can be measured

separately one pair at a time
+ addition to be done later
+ two moveable antennas →
simulation of a large dish

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 The Two-Element Interferometer I

B = Baseline
Θ = angle between
base line and wave
front from source
τg = B·sinΘ / c wave
propagation
(geometric) delay

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 The Two-Element Interferometer II

+ assuming a point source and monochromatic radiation:

➀ R1(t) = E·cos ωt
➁ R2(t) = E·cos ω(t - τg)
➂ R3(t) = R1(t)·R2(t)
= [E·cos ωt] · [E·cos ω(t-τg)]
= ½E² · [cos ω(t + t - τg) + cos ω(t - t + τg)]
= ½E² · [cos ω(2t - τg) + cos ωτg]
➃ R4 = ½E² · cos ωτg

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 The Two-Element Interferometer III

+ tracking the source / earth rotation make:

Θ = Θ(t) and τg = τg(t) = B·sin Θ(t) / c
+ therefore
B ⋅ sinΘ (t)
R4(t) = ½E²[cos(ω )]
c
  2πB ⋅ sinΘ (t)   2πB ⋅ Θ (t) 
= ½E² cos  ≈ ½E² ⋅ cos 
  λ   λ 

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 The Two-Element Interferometer IV

←single antenna
characteristic

←tracking the source

←transit instrument

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 Requirements for a Working
Interferometer

+ Technical requirements:
! local oscillators for mixers of both telescopes phase-locked
! RF lines from antennas to receivers of equal length

+ Radiation requirements
! planar wave fronts
! coherence length » τg·c
! variation of radiation intensity slow when compared to τg

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 Extended Sources I

+ point source =
unrealistic case
+ extended source
= sum of point sources
+ response of the
interferometer
= sum of the responses
to point sources

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 Extended Sources II

+ using vector notation:

! s(t) = source vector (to
source center)
! σ = element deviation
from source center
! B = vector notation of
baseline
! b = projected spacing

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 Extended Sources III

+∞
R(t) ∝ ∫ dσ ⋅ I (σ ) ⋅ cos(2πB ⋅ (s(t) + σ ))
−∞

= V ⋅ exp{i 2πB ⋅ s(t )}

+∞
V= ∫ dσ ⋅ I (σ ) ⋅ exp{i 2πb ⋅ σ}
−∞

V = Visibility function = Fourier transformation of

source’s brightness distribution
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 Bandwidth Effects I

+ wide bandwidths desirable → increasing S/N ratio

 2πB ⋅ Θ (t)  from monochromatic

R(t) = ½E² ⋅ cos 
 λ  case becomes:
ω 0 + ∆ω
 2πB ⋅ Θ (t) 
R(t) = ½E² ⋅ ∫ω0
d(ω ) ⋅ α (ω ) ⋅ cos
 λ


α(ω) = frequency characteristics of equipment

∆ω τg can lead to loss of correlation !

+ big ∆ω:

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 Bandwidth Effects II

+ instrumental delay
τi for compensation
+ exact compensation
of τg only for s
+ interferences from
source elements at
s+σσ

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 Aperture Synthesis I

+ two-element interferometer
→ one Fourier component of brightness distribution
→ measuring at one discrete spatial frequency
+ spatial frequency
→ describes how fast the brightness changes with
the direction (angle) of observation
→ analogy: frequencies describe how fast the
amplitude of an electrical signal changes in time

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 Aperture Synthesis II

+ single radio telescope = low-pass for spatial frequencies

+ interferometer = band-pass for spatial frequencies
+ reconstruction of brightness distribution needs
measuring at many different spatial frequencies
+ analogy: voice signal on a phone line
! one measuring system measures at 1kHz
! others at 300, 350, ... , 2800, 2900, 3000Hz
! all together → approximation of the original signal
! ordinary telephone ≅ filled aperture telescope
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 Aperture Synthesis III

Image reconstruction:
+ inverse Fourier transformation of a set of Visibility
functions
+ cleaning of images necessary
! CLEAN algorithm (Högbom 1974)
• variants: Clark, Cotton-Schwab
! Maximum Entropy Method (Wernecke 1975)

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 Aperture Synthesis IV

+ image quality depends on number of elements

source’s
brightness 9x9 40 x 40
distribution components components

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 VLBI

+ first interferometers: directly connected by RF lines

+ not feasible with greater distances
+ Very Long Baseline Interferometry:
! inter-continental distances (baselines > 10000km)
! synchronization of LOs: atomic frequency standards
! correlation of signals: off-line
! earth rotation → different visibility functions with the
same telescopes

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 Intensity Interferometer

+ Hanbury Brown, Twiss (1968)

+ interferometer without phase stable system
(incoherent LOs)
+ post-detection multiplication
+ some correlation due to intensity fluctuatios
+ low signal-to-noise ratio

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 Amateur Radio Astronomy and
Interferometry I

+ lots of amateur radio telescopes available

+ main problem: LO and time synchronization
+ ALLBIN project:
! synchronization of time by Astra satellite
! Phase 1: “only” accumulation of data
! Phase 2: intensity interferometer (no LO
synchronization necessary)
! Phase 3: ALLBIN a “normal” interferometer ???
September 8, 2000 Basics of Radio Interferometry 23
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 Amateur Radio Astronomy and
Interferometry II

+ What’s missing to make ALLBIN a real interferometer?

(Assume data exchange and communication from
phase 1 working!)
! phase 2:
• understand Intensity Interferometer
• write software to combine data from telescopes
and for imaging
! phase 3:
• develop techniques to use satellite signal for LO
• software (use as much as possible from first step)
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 Literature I

+ Books
! John D. Kraus, Radio Astronomy, 2nd Edition, Cygnus-Quasar Books
! Burke, Graham-Smith, An Introduction to Radio Astronomy, Cambridge Univ. Press 1997
! Verschuur, Kellermann (Ed.), Galactic and Extra-Galactic Radio Astronomy, Chapter 10
by [Link] & Melwyn [Link], Springer 1974
! Kristen Rohlfs, Tools of Radio Astronomy, Chapter 6, Springer 1986
! [Link], [Link], Interferometrie in Radioastronomie und Radartechnik, Vogel-
Verlag 1973
+ Articles
! [Link], Earth-Rotation Aperture Synthesis, IEEE Proceedings Vol.61, No.9, 1973
! [Link], [Link], Interpolation and Fourier Transformation of Fringe
Visibilities, Astronomical Journal, 1974
! [Link], High-Resolution Observations of Radio Sources, ARAA Vol. 7, 1969
! [Link], Phase Error Correction in Multi-Element Radio Interferometers by Data
Processing, [Link] 15, 1974
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 Literature II

+ Articles (cont’d)
! [Link], Two-dimensional Maximum Entropy Reconstruction of Radio
Brightness, Radio Science, Vol. 12, No. 5, 1977
+ Internet
! [Link]
! [Link]
! [Link]
! MERLIN User’s Guide:
[Link]
! image cleaning algorithms:
[Link]
! Astronomical Optical Interferometry, A Literature Review by Bob Tubbs:
[Link]

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