Toward the arrival of SZ cluster surveys: the Arcminute Microkelvin Imager Small Array

Tak Kaneko

doi:10.1117/12.684882

26 June 2006 Toward the arrival of SZ cluster surveys: the Arcminute Microkelvin Imager Small Array

Tak Kaneko

Proceedings Volume 6267, Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes; 62673R (2006) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.684882
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2006, Orlando, Florida , United States

Abstract

The Arcminute Microkelvin Imager Small Array (AMI-SA) has recently begun scientific observations. This paper describes the design of the AMI-SA, a new radio interferometer that will carry out a survey of galaxy clusters using the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect. AMI-SA consists of ten 3.7 m antennas with baselines in the range 5-20 m. The relatively wide synthesised beam of 3'.4 improves the sensitivity to the extended features of galaxy clusters. The AMI-SA is located at Cambridge, UK and observes at 12-18 GHz. Commercially available dishes were used for the primary antennas and a novel rolled-edge Cassegrain system was developed to improve the aperture efficiency. A low system temperature of 25 K required for an SZ survey is achieved by cooled low-noise receivers. A high IF band of 6-12 GHz was adopted to realize broadband IF components. The path differences between antennas are corrected by a broad-band path compensator and signals are cross-correlated by a cost-effective broadband analogue lag correlator that synthesizes eight frequency channels. The effects of radio sources that contaminate the SZ effect will be removed by simultaneous observation with a separate long-baseline interferometer. As part of the AMI program, the Ryle Telescope is currently undergoing a major upgrade; the AMI Large Array (AMI-LA) will be an eight-element interferometer with 12.8 m dishes. It will observe over the same band at the same site and much of the back-end electronics are common with the AMI-SA.

Citation Download Citation

Tak Kaneko "Toward the arrival of SZ cluster surveys: the Arcminute Microkelvin Imager Small Array", Proc. SPIE 6267, Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes, 62673R (26 June 2006); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.684882

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