Girish Kumar Beeharry Mauritius Radio Telescope An African Low Frequency E-vlbi

Outline · Preamble · Proposed Instrument · Station outline · Science · Technology · SWOT analysis · Cost & funding · Cooperation mechanism · Comments

Preamble - Countries thrived/thrive/(will thrive?) on their natural resources. -It is now time to gear up to new science and technology based avenues which can, without being exceedingly vatic, induce bootstrapped development. -However, the prevalent attitude has bee/is to purchase first world technology which is customarily understood atend-user level but, sadly, not at that of research and development.

Rambling on... -Another important issue is that of regional integration. Whilst, trade and industry are being promoted, there is a paucity of areas of cooperation in science and technology. -Additionally, there is ample scope for bolstering higher education ventures. - Promising science and technology fields are can be made to be at par with the other ones, provided there is sufficient federative and cohesive ground. =One such potential field is now adumbrated.

SADC, SACU, COMESA, AU, Africa Source::

An African Low Frequency E-vlbi: ALFE -A sensitive high resolution multi-frequency dual polarity instrument in the range 30 to 800 MHz using multiple stations of low-cost dipoles, such as log-periodic antennas. - Baselines will range from a few metres, in one station, to some km-ish for the whole instrument. - The instrument & each station is modular in nature - A station will be able to function in its own right - Subsets of the whole instrument could also be used.. - The desired final technical specifications of the whole instrument are a function of the number of participants. -The tentative technical specifications station and whole instrument are now examined.

ALFE: Station outline - Each station is planned for observations on its own. - Sufficient sensitivity and resolution built in. - The front-end & the back-end should be integrated with the data acquisition locally. - The data pipeline should also cater for intra-station as well as inter-station correlation. -Local hub managing system which will be synchronised, by the central hub, with other stations.

ALFE: Technology - Near real time Very Long Baseline Interferometry(VLBI) and electronic-VLBI - Data Management - High Capacity Correlation - Digital Data Processing - Antenna design - Receiver system design - Data acquisition system design - Radio Frequency(RF) Electronics - Networking - Digital Subscriber Line(DSL) Communications

ALFE: Science - Extremely Wide Field Imaging - Issues of Non-coplanarity - Analysis Algorithms for Radio Maps - Solar: flares, coronal mass ejections - The Galaxy and the galactic centre star forming regions - Galaxies and clusters of galaxies, - Pulsars - Supernova Remnants - Transient sources - Spectral and recombination line observations - Study of spectral indices of sources - Interstellar scintillation: lower end of spectrum - Jupiter: lower end of spectrum - Ionospheric and Space Weather - Geodesy and Cartography

African radioastronomy experience - South Africa: >GHz, dish technology, strong engineering, AIPS, imaging, lines. - Mauritius: < GHz, antenna technology, non-coplanar phased array, extremely wide field imaging. - Nigeria: Dish -Other countries???

SWOT Strengths: - Regions with relatively low noise - As most of radio telescopes are concentrated in the Northern hemisphere, there have been very few (<1GHz) radio sky surveys in the South - Flux at low frequency - No multi-frequency simultaneous survey; much of the interesting and important information is missing. Weaknesses: - Too much talking, not enough action - Infrastructure - Science & Technology - Education

SWOT Opportunities: - Region can really use S&T to address the weaknesses - Greater regional integration in S&T : SA has shown the way to co-operation - S&T Industry initiation in other African countries Threats: - Immobility - Lack of human resources - Lack of funding - Engineering & Technology Industry deficit

Cost & funding Tentative Approximate Cost per station:: - Equipment & cabling: ~300,000 USD - Building & access: ~ 200,000 USD Funding is VERY IMPORTANT:: - Alms - Governments - Telecom industry - EU-SADC, EU-ACP, US etc

Co-operation Mechanism - Easiest for project but most difficult to achieve in real life is an inter-governmental multilateral Memorandum of Understanding - Bi-lateral at country's research apex body level - University & Research institutional level - Departmental & individual level

Comments Suggestions, Please. Thanks!