EMBRACE@Nancay: An Ultra Wide Field of View Prototype for the SKA

TL;DR

The paper discusses the development and testing of EMBRACE, a prototype ultra-wide field of view radio array, demonstrating its potential for large-scale sky surveys and its relevance to the SKA project.

Contribution

It introduces the EMBRACE prototype, showcasing its capabilities and potential for high-resolution, wide-field radio astronomy, advancing the technology for future SKA arrays.

Findings

EMBRACE achieves over 100 square degrees field of view.

The prototype demonstrates high angular resolution sampling.

Results indicate suitability for fast, all-sky surveys.

Abstract

A revolution in radio receiving technology is underway with the development of densely packed phased arrays for radio astronomy. This technology can provide an exceptionally large field of view, while at the same time sampling the sky with high angular resolution. Such an instrument, with a field of view of over 100 square degrees, is ideal for performing fast, all-sky, surveys, such as the "intensity mapping" experiment to measure the signature of Baryonic Acoustic Oscillations in the HI mass distribution at cosmological redshifts. The SKA, built with this technology, will be able to do a billion galaxy survey. I will present a very brief introduction to radio interferometry, as well as an overview of the Square Kilometre Array project. This will be followed by a description of the EMBRACE prototype and a discussion of results and future plans.