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The Ooty Wide Field Array

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Abstract

We describe here an ongoing upgrade to the legacy Ooty Radio Telescope (ORT). The ORT is a cylindrical parabolic cylinder 530 m × 30 m in size operating at a frequency of 326.5 (or z∼3.35 for the HI 21-cm line). The telescope has been constructed on a North–South hill slope whose gradient is equal to the latitude of the hill, making it effectively equatorially mounted. The feed consists of an array of 1056 dipoles. The key feature of this upgrade is the digitization and cross-correlation of the signals of every set of 4-dipoles. This converts the ORT into a 264 element interferometer with a field-of-view of 2∘×27.4∘cos(δ). This upgraded instrument is called the Ooty Wide Field Array (OWFA). This paper briefly describes the salient features of the upgrade, as well as its main science drivers. There are three main science drivers viz. (1) observations of the large scale distribution of HI in the post-reionization era, (2) studies of the propagation of plasma irregularities through the inner heliosphere and (3) blind surveys for transient sources. More details on the upgrade, as well as on the expected science uses can be found in other papers in this special issue.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the staff at the Radio Astronomy Centre (RAC) Ooty, whose help formed a critical component of this project. We also acknowledge the assistance from Peeyush Prasad and T. C. Pawan during the realisation of this project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Raman Research Institute, C. V. Raman Avenue, Sadashivnagar, Bengaluru, 560 080, India

    C. R. SUBRAHMANYA

  2. NCRA-TIFR, Pune University Campus, Ganeshkhind, Pune, 411 007, India

    JAYARAM N. CHENGALUR

  3. NCRA-TIFR, Radio Astronomy Centre, P.O. Box 8, Ooty, 643 001, India

    P. K. MANOHARAN

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  1. C. R. SUBRAHMANYA
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  2. P. K. MANOHARAN
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  3. JAYARAM N. CHENGALUR
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Correspondence to JAYARAM N. CHENGALUR.

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SUBRAHMANYA, C.R., MANOHARAN, P.K. & CHENGALUR, J.N. The Ooty Wide Field Array. J Astrophys Astron 38, 10 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12036-017-9430-4

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