An Agile, Precision Digital Spectrometer for Radio Science

University Of California-Berkeley, Berkeley CA

Investigators

Abstract

Backer award abstract AST-9987278 A spectrum analyzer for radio astronomy observations of millisecond pulsars in globular clusters and in selected field regions will be designed and built. This instrumentation will add to our understanding of stellar evolution. Precision timing of millisecond pulsars will probe the long-wavelength end of the cosmic gravitational wave background. The coalescence of super massive black holes of varying masses may be detected by sensing the gravitationally induced radiation they emit. The instrumentation will be a spectrum analyzer with 10 to 100 Mega Hertz bandwidth per card. Five approaches will be considered and one selected for implementation. The plan is to examine the technology and to use the most rapidly developing and popular architecture available in a commercial device that both has an extensive user base an da solid support framework. The most likely approach is to use an array of commercially available digital signal processors for the spectrum analyzer. High-speed processors in the range of 1 giga floating point operations per second are being considered. ***