Ionospheric Calibration of Low Frequency Radio Interferometric Observations using the Peeling Scheme: I. Method Description and First Results

TL;DR

This paper introduces SPAM, a novel ionospheric calibration method for low-frequency radio interferometry that models the ionosphere as a dynamic phase screen, improving image quality and source flux accuracy.

Contribution

The paper presents a new calibration technique, SPAM, that models ionospheric effects with a time-variant phase screen using Karhunen-Loeve functions, enhancing calibration accuracy over existing methods.

Findings

Significant noise reduction in images (5-75%)

Up to 25% increase in source peak fluxes

Improved ionospheric phase calibration accuracy

Abstract

Calibration of radio interferometric observations becomes increasingly difficult towards lower frequencies. Below ~300 MHz, spatially variant refractions and propagation delays of radio waves traveling through the ionosphere cause phase rotations that can vary significantly with time, viewing direction and antenna location. In this article we present a description and first results of SPAM (Source Peeling and Atmospheric Modeling), a new calibration method that attempts to iteratively solve and correct for ionospheric phase errors. To model the ionosphere, we construct a time-variant, 2-dimensional phase screen at fixed height above the Earth's surface. Spatial variations are described by a truncated set of discrete Karhunen-Loeve base functions, optimized for an assumed power-law spectral density of free electrons density fluctuations, and a given configuration of calibrator sources and antenna locations. The model is constrained using antenna-based gain phases from individual self-calibrations on the available bright sources in the field-of-view. Application of SPAM on three test cases, a simulated visibility data set and two selected 74 MHz VLA data sets, yields significant improvements in image background noise (5-75 percent reduction) and source peak fluxes (up to 25 percent increase) as compared to the existing self-calibration and field-based calibration methods, which indicates a significant improvement in ionospheric phase calibration accuracy.