Radio telescope computer software for detecting exotic astronomical sources that change with time

West Virginia University Research Corporation, Morgantown WV

Investigators

Abstract

"Fast Radio Bursts" (FRBs) are linked to exotic astronomical objects in distant galaxies that produce a sudden and very dramatic burst of radio waves. The burst lasts a fraction of a second. Yet modern radio telescopes like the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in West Virginia can detect these remarkable events - if they are equipped with sensitive equipment and sophisticated computer programs to analyze the data. A collaboration of scientists and students (both graduate and undergraduate) from the University of West Virginia and Virginia Tech plan to develop these programs for the GBT. Astronomers do not yet know what produces FRBs. They could be the result of colliding stars, or perhaps black holes swallowing neighboring stars. Either way, telescopes like the GBT should lead astronomers much closer to an answer. The detection of FRBs, believed to be extra-galactic in origin, and other potentially exotic radio transits, has in recent years been enabled by a revolution in radio instrumentation and computing power. The latter has lead to the development of sophisticated signal processing algorithms. The principal investigator, working with her graduate and undergraduate students and a collaborator at Virginia Tech., aims to develop such algorithms with a view to deploying them on the GBT and detecting radio transients in real time. The techniques will be prototyped on radio receivers already in place and in operation at the GBT; the software will run in parallel with existing data processing systems. The algorithms will enable sensitive, wide-field surveys of pulsars and other radio transients, in additions to the FRBs mentioned above. The algorithms and source code will be made freely available to the astronomical community once commissioned on the GBT. The PI also aims to develop a "Statistical Signal Processing for Sensor Arrays" undergraduate course to help make the technology more accessible to a wider audience and to educate the next generation of scientists and engineers.