Simulation of a Zenith-Field Sky Survey on RATAN-600

TL;DR

This paper simulates a deep multi-frequency sky survey on RATAN-600 using NVSS data, analyzing source flux accuracy, spectral indices, and cleaning real survey records to improve data quality.

Contribution

It introduces a simulation method for the RZF survey using NVSS images and assesses the accuracy of source flux and spectral index determination.

Findings

Residual noise after cleaning is about 1 mJy at 7.6 cm.

Simulation results help improve the analysis of real survey data.

The effect of image area size on simulation accuracy is evaluated.

Abstract

In this paper we simulate a deep multi-frequency zenith-field sky survey on RATAN-600 (the RZF survey). In our simulations we use the 1.4 GHz sky images obtained in the NVSS survey. We convolved NVSS images with the two-dimensional power beam pattern of RATAN-600 and obtain simulated 24-hour scans of sky transits at all wavelengths of the RZF survey. For the 7.6 cm wavelength we analyze the effect of the image area size on the results of the simulation. We estimate the accuracy of the determination of source fluxes on simulated scans and derive the distributions of the spectral indices of the sources. We use the simulated scans to clean real records of the RZF survey at 7.6 cm. The standard error of the residual noise at this wavelength is about 1 mJy.