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MWAX VCS Commissioning

MWAX VCS Commissioning

Jan 14, 2022

The recent upgrade to MWAX necessitates verification that the system is capable of observing high time resolution phenomena, such as pulsars. To this end, we put in a successful proposal for an MWA observing campaign to being in the end of 2021 and into the beginning of 2022. The requested observations fall into two categories:

  1. commissioning observations, and

  2. the remaining SMART observations.

This page details the progress made in taking the observations and performing the tests to complete the commissioning phase. Progress with the SMART survey is detailed elsewhere.

Commissioning Observations

Goals & Target Pulsars

The stated goals of the commissioning observations are:

  1. To develop and test the tied-array beamformer for the new VCS data format

  2. Verification of frequency labelling

  3. Data recording and timing stability

  4. Polarimetric verification and leakage assessment

  5. Full coherent beam sensitivity and timing accuracy

  6. The voltage dump and trigger mode (in response to external triggers)

  7. Correlation and imaging of data recorded in the new VCS format

A partial list of requested observations to satisfy the above goals are:

Goal

Number of obs

Duration (mins)

Pulsars (e.g.)

Goal

Number of obs

Duration (mins)

Pulsars (e.g.)

#1

2

5-10

B1749-28, B0031-07

#2

2

20

J2241-5236

#3

2

60

J0437-4715, J2145-0750

#4

4

10

B0628-28, B0737-40, B0740-28, B1749-28

#5

3

20

J0036-1033 (and B0031-07, J0034-0534)

Observations

The following link performs a query on the MWA observation database, showing the details of the observations made so far:

https://ws.mwatelescope.org/metadata/find/?search=search&html=1&pagesize=100&projectid=G0057&mintime_utc=2021-12-13T01%3A00&maxtime_utc=2021-12-29T01%3A00

The following table is a summary of the same observations, and which of the goals (see the table above) that they are intended to satisfy:

Obsid

Duration (sec)

Files

Pulsar(s) / Calibrator(s)

RA/Dec

PC RA/Dec

Az/El

Goal

Processing

Download folder

VCSBeam version*

Beamforming time

Obsid

Duration (sec)

Files

Pulsar(s) / Calibrator(s)

RA/Dec

PC RA/Dec

Az/El

Goal

Processing

Download folder

VCSBeam version*

Beamforming time

1323690320

296

24

In-beam calibration (for 1323690616)

11.8 / -5.8

8.5 / -7.4

341.6 / 68.0

1, 5

Downloaded

/astro/mwavcs/asvo/253001

v3.3.31_c279695

 

1323690616

1200

3600 VCS

B0031-07
J0036-1033
J0034-0534

8.0 / -5.2

8.5 / -7.4

326.3 / 64.7

1, 5

Downloaded
J0034-0534 (FAIL!)

/astro/mwavcs/asvo/253008

v3.3.31_c279695

1 channel: 1600s
24 channels: 4200-5000s

1323708616

296

24

In-beam calibration (for 1323709032)

95.1 / -26.7

97.7 / -28.6

0.0 / 90.0

1, 4

Downloaded

/astro/mwavcs/asvo/253000

 

 

1323708912

120

24

PicA (for 1323709032)

75.9 / -46.4

80.0 / -45.8

213.7 / 64.7

1, 4

Downloaded

/astro/mwavcs/asvo/252998

 

 

1323709032

600

1800 VCS

B0628-28

97.5 / -26.7

97.7 / -28.6

0.0 / 90.0

1, 4

Downloaded

/astro/mwavcs/asvo/253009

 

 

1323776720

120

24

PKS2356-61 (for 1323776840)

4.3 / -62.7

359.8 / -60.9

191.3 / 52.8

1, 2

Downloaded

/astro/mwavcs/asvo/252999

 

 

1323776840

1200

3600 VCS

J2241-5236

346.9 / -51.9

340.4 / -52.6

216.9 / 53.6

1, 2

Downloaded

/astro/mwavcs/asvo/253010

 

 

*VCSBeam version is the earliest version that was successfully used for the processing. For calibration observations, this means using mwa_plot_calibration, and for the VCS observations, make_mwa_tied_array_beam.

Processing details

Setting up Garrawarla environment

Setting up Garrawarla environment
module use /pawsey/mwa/software/python3/modulefiles module load singularity module load vcsbeam module load psrcat module load hyperdrive

1323690320

Run Hyperdrive

Create Hyperdrive batch script:

#!/bin/bash -l #SBATCH --job-name=hyp-$1 #SBATCH --output=hyperdrive.out #SBATCH --nodes=1 #SBATCH --ntasks-per-node=40 #SBATCH --time=01:00:00 #SBATCH --clusters=garrawarla #SBATCH --partition=gpuq #SBATCH --account=mwavcs #SBATCH --export=NONE #SBATCH --gres=tmp:50g #SBATCH --gres=gpu:1 # Load the Hyperdrive module module use /pawsey/mwa/software/python3/modulefiles module load hyperdrive set -eux which hyperdrive # The location of the correlated visibility FITS files: DATADIR=/astro/mwavcs/asvo/253001 # The path to the associated metafits file CAL_METAFITS=${DATADIR}/1323690320.metafits # The base source list (you shouldn't need to change this) SRCLIST=/pawsey/mwa/software/python3/srclists/master/srclist_pumav3_EoR0aegean_fixedEoR1pietro+ForA_phase1+2.txt # If it hasn't been done already, run Hyperdrive in "srclist-by-beam" to get just the subset of sources in the beam if [[ ! -r srclist_1000.yaml ]]; then hyperdrive srclist-by-beam \ -n 1000 \ -m ${CAL_METAFITS} \ /pawsey/mwa/software/python3/srclists/master/srclist_pumav3_EoR0aegean_fixedEoR1pietro+ForA_phase1+2.txt \ srclist_1000.yaml fi # Run Hyperdrive to generate a calibration solution hyperdrive di-calibrate \ -s srclist_1000.yaml \ -d ${DATADIR}/*.fits \ ${CAL_METAFITS}