Holographic Beam Measurements of the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME)

TL;DR

This paper presents the first holographic beam mapping results for CHIME, providing detailed measurements of its beam response across the frequency band, which aids in improving its scientific capabilities.

Contribution

It introduces the holographic technique adapted for CHIME and the processing pipeline for beam analysis, offering new detailed beam measurements and comparisons with independent probes.

Findings

Measured co-polar and cross-polar beam responses across 400-800 MHz.

Identified polarized beam leakage in CHIME.

Validated beam models used in key scientific detections.

Abstract

We present the first results of the holographic beam mapping program for the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME). We describe the implementation of the holographic technique as adapted for CHIME, and introduce the processing pipeline which prepares the raw holographic timestreams for analysis of beam features. We use data from six bright sources across the full 400-800\,MHz observing band of CHIME to provide measurements of the co-polar and cross-polar beam response of CHIME in both amplitude and phase for the 1024 dual-polarized feeds instrumented on CHIME. In addition, we present comparisons with independent probes of the CHIME beam which indicate the presence of polarized beam leakage in CHIME. Holographic measurements of the CHIME beam have already been applied in science with CHIME, e.g. in estimating detection significance of far sidelobe FRBs, and in validating the beam models used for CHIME's first detections of \tcm emission (in cross-correlation with measurements of large-scale structure from galaxy surveys and the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest). Measurements presented in this paper, and future holographic results, will provide a unique data set to characterize the CHIME beam and improve the experiment's prospects for a detection of BAO.