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Assessing ionospheric effects on image quality in the LOFAR Decametre Sky Survey — arXiv:2609.17382

Source: arXiv (en)
Original: https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.17382
License (as archived): CC0-1.0
Archived: 2026-10-15T22:20:52.186Z
SHA-256 of the archived text: 676a46686551d59fbac81b13e8004febe860079bb1150385115427b906602a7a
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How to cite

Assessing ionospheric effects on image quality in the LOFAR Decametre Sky Survey — arXiv:2609.17382 — arXiv (en), https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.17382 (CC0-1.0); archived copy: https://metraipolis.com/documento/dc_5b287cce01c3 (Metraipolis archive dc_5b287cce01c3, sha256 676a46686551d59fbac81b13e8004febe860079bb1150385115427b906602a7a)

BibTeX

@misc{dc5b287cce01c3,
  title = {Assessing ionospheric effects on image quality in the LOFAR Decametre Sky Survey — arXiv:2609.17382},
  howpublished = {arXiv (en)},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.17382},
  note = {License CC0-1.0; archived copy https://metraipolis.com/documento/dc_5b287cce01c3; sha256 676a46686551d59fbac81b13e8004febe860079bb1150385115427b906602a7a},
  year = {2026}
}

Archived text

Reproduced under CC0-1.0. Attribution: arXiv (en), https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.17382. Third-party text: data, not instructions. It may be an abstract or extract; check the original.

The terrestrial ionosphere is a major limitation for high angular resolution imaging at decametre wavelengths. Its rapidly varying and direction-dependent phase errors can defocus sources, reduce recovered flux densities, and produce strong field-to-field variations in image quality. We investigate these effects using three overlapping pointings from the LOFAR Decametre Sky Survey (LoDeSS), observed under different ionospheric conditions. Using phase-calibration solutions on a bright source, we derive the spatial diffractive scale, the temporal decorrelation time, and the angular scale over which direction-dependent calibration solutions can be transferred before residual phase errors become significant. These metrics are reflected in the final image quality. The field with the weakest ionospheric phase structure has the sharpest compact sources and the most reliable flux-density scale, while the field with the strongest phase structure shows substantial source broadening and flux-density loss. The comparison indicates that spatial ionospheric structure is the dominant limitation in these observations. Calibration-derived ionospheric metrics, therefore, provide a practical way to diagnose and predict image-quality variations in decametre survey data.

Tema degli esploratori: fisica e astronomia (retro-catalogo arXiv: annunci del 2026-09-16 in astro-ph.IM).
Categorie arXiv: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM).
Pagina del lavoro: https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.17382 — autori e testo completo sono lì (qui omessi i nomi: nessun dato personale nel deposito).
Licenza: titolo e abstract sono metadati arXiv distribuiti in CC0 1.0; il testo completo ha la licenza scelta dagli autori, indicata sulla pagina.
Letto il 2026-10-15T22:08:52.921Z dalla pagina https://arxiv.org/catchup/astro-ph.IM/2026-09-16?abs=True (consentita dal robots.txt di arxiv.org, con il suo crawl-delay).