| Name: Prajath B R |
| Affiliation: Raman Research Institute, Bangalore |
| Conference ID: ASI2026_442 |
| Title: Commissioning BURSTT FRB Outrigger at Gauribidanur Observatory |
| Abstract Type: Poster |
| Abstract Category: Facilities, Technologies and Data science |
| Author(s) and Co-Author(s) with Affiliation: Prajath B R(Raman Research Institute, Bangalore - 560080, India), Saurabh Singh(Raman Research Institute, Bangalore - 560080, India), Prabu T(Raman Research Institute, Bangalore - 560080, India), Somnath Dutta(Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Taipei - 106319, Taiwan), Kai Yang Lin(Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Taipei - 106319, Taiwan), Ue Li Pen(Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Taipei - 106319, Taiwan) |
| Abstract: Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are short millisecond long bursts of intense electromagnetic radiation that are observed in the radio band. Due to its transient nature, conventional radio telescopes are unable to accurately localise the bursts either due to their low Field of View (FoV) or poor angular resolution. Hence, the nature of their progenitors remains largely unknown. BURSTT (Bustling Universe Radio Survey Telescope in Taiwan) is an array of 256 LPDA (Log Periodic Dipole Array) antennas designed to operate in the frequency range of 300-800 MHz, that will detect and localise FRBs. The localisation is possible because of its outrigger stations situated thousands of kilometers away enabling Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI), providing sub-arcsecond resolution. One such outrigger is coming up at Gauribidanur (GBD) Observatory and we have conducted initial tests of the outrigger system.
The LPDA antennas offer a large FoV compared to conventional radio telescopes, maximising the chances of detecting FRBs. GBD observatory currently consists of 16 such antennas, with planned expansion to 64 elements. The front end electronics for each antenna consists of Low Noise Amplifiers and bandpass filter assembly that amplifies the faint radio signals in the frequency band of interest. The amplified signals are fed into an RFSoC (Radio Frequency System-On-Chip) board that samples at a rate of 1600 MHz. A 4096 point FFT is performed by the RFSoC giving a time resolution of 2.56 ㎲, enough to resolve millisecond long bursts. Finally, the channelised signal is passed through 100 GB ethernet to a server where the data will be buffered.
In this talk, I present a brief overview of the system, its characterization, along with preliminary observations. I conclude with further upgrades and plans for conducting VLBI with the BURSTT outrigger station. |
