2009-08-24 16:00 ~ 17:30
- Speaker : Dr. Dale E. Gary (NJIT, USA)
The Korean Solar Radio Burst Locator (KSRBL; Dou et al. 2009,
PASP 121, ) is a state-of-the-art research instrument capable of
addressing several basic and applied research goals. These include the
study of solar activity, the ability to locate bursts on the solar disk,
the study of radio frequency interference (RFI) mitigation, and the
study of space weather effects of solar bursts on wireless
communications and navigation systems. KSRBL takes its name from the
operational goal of locating bursts within 2 arcmin on the solar disk, a
region small enough to identify the active region within which the burst
occurs. This is useful because solar flares that occur to the east of
the central meridian on the Sun are less likely to cause severe
geo-effects than are flares that occur to the west. Thus, KSRBL provides
an all-weather monitoring of burst locations as a backup to satellite
systems. The talk will discuss the technique KSRBL uses to locate bursts
despite its small dish size (2.1 m). In addition to locating bursts,
KSRBL\/s high frequency and time resolution allows the spectral
characteristics of the burst to be studied in unprecedented detail.
KSRBL is frequency-agile (frequencies can be measured in any order), and
measures a 2 GHz bandwidth with a time resolution of 25 ms. By tuning
every 100 ms, it can cover the entire 0.245-18 GHz range of the
instrument in 1 s. The talk will include a discussion of some of the
spectral features KSRBL will be able to resolve and study.
Because KSRBL covers such a wide frequency range, it sees a lot of RFI,
both continuous and intermittent. The continuous RFI is relatively easy
to remove. Highly intermittent RFI, which may appear and disappear on
millisecond timescales and skip around in frequency, is far more
difficult to detect and remove. KSRBL uses an innovative technique
called Spectral Kurtosis (or SK; Nita et al. 2007, PASP 119, ) to detect
and remove this more difficult RFI, resulting in a clean spectrum
largely free of contaminating noise. The talk will demonstrate KSRBL\/s
RFI mitigation capability and briefly describe how the SK algorithm
works. Lastly, the talk will discuss KSRBL\/s usefulness for
investigating effects of solar bursts on GPS, cell-phone, and other
wireless technologies.