The Long Wavelength Array Software Library

TL;DR

The Long Wavelength Array Software Library (LSL) is a Python toolkit designed to analyze, process, and export data from the LWA1, addressing challenges posed by large-N data formats and enabling flexible low-frequency radio data analysis.

Contribution

Introduces a Python library tailored for LWA1 data processing, overcoming limitations of existing software for large-N array data analysis.

Findings

Enables reading raw LWA1 data

Supports synthesis of filter banks

Allows incoherent de-dispersion

Abstract

The Long Wavelength Array Software Library (LSL) is a Python module that provides a collection of utilities to analyze and export data collected at the first station of the Long Wavelength Array, LWA1. Due to the nature of the data format and large-N ($\gtrsim$100 inputs) challenges faced by the LWA, currently available software packages are not suited to process the data. Using tools provided by LSL, observers can read in the raw LWA1 data, synthesize a filter bank, and apply incoherent de-dispersion to the data. The extensible nature of LSL also makes it an ideal tool for building data analysis pipelines and applying the methods to other low frequency arrays.