The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) Wideband Sensitivity Upgrade (WSU) will at least double the observation bandwidth and improve the sensitivity and scientific capabilities. The WSU requires upgrading the receiver front-end and the associated analog and digital electronics including the correlator, as well as the ALMA software. In line with the WSU mission, the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) initiated the ALMA Band 8 (385-500 GHz) version2 receiver upgrade project, aiming to build an upgrade of the currently existing receiver cartridge with a substantially improved second-generation version. This project originated from significant advances in receiver technologies and a variety of our previous wideband studies in the last decade. This paper briefly summarizes an overview of this project, scientific needs in this frequency range, and the technical readiness and challenges for critical components and subsystems.
The 2-μm near-infrared (NIR) camera, IR2, onboard Japan’s Venus orbiter Akatsuki acquired Venus images after the successful orbit insertion in December 2015. IR2 utilizes a platinum silicide (PtSi) Schottky-barrier array sensor (1040×1040 pixels) in which photon is detected by the photo-electric effect. This is by nature not a very high efficiency mechanism therefore unused light is subjected to multiple reflection within the silicon substrate (400-μm thick in IR2). Because very intense day crescent (some ~3 orders of magnitudes brighter) of Venus exists in the same field of view when the night-side disk is imaged, light spread from the former significantly affects the photometry of the latter. To restore the night-side features to a level that can be measured photometrically, we have developed a simulation to model the point-spread function (PSF) of IR2 in which effect of multiple light reflection is accounted for. Different elements in the array sensor (the NIR-sensitive PtSi pixels, the vertical scanning lines, and the charge-sweep device area) are considered and the light reflection is traced until the beam becomes weaker than a threshold. While the multiple rings (the innermost one corresponds to the critical angle of total internal reflection) are successfully reproduced, the cross pattern did not show up from this simulation and we had to artificially add it. The concept of simulation may be useful for other sensors of which substrate is relatively transparent for the wavelengths of interest while the target objects contain large dynamic range.
We present the results of a digital calibration technique applied to an Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array sideband separating wideband astronomical receiver of 275 to 500 GHz radio frequency (RF) and 3 to 22 GHz intermediate frequency bandwidth. The calibration technique consists of computing the magnitude ratio and the phase difference of the receiver output, and then applying correction constants to the digitized signals. Two analog-digital converters are used to digitize the signals and an field-programmable gate array for the processing. No modification in the analog receiver is required to apply the calibration, as it works directly on upper sideband/lower sideband signals. The technique improved the receiver temperature compared with the double sideband case by increasing the sideband rejection ratio by around 30 dB on average. It is shown that even more rejection can be obtained with more careful control of the RF calibration input power.
NAOJ have studied wideband receiver technologies at submillimeter wavelengths toward implementation as future upgrades into the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array telescope. We have developed critical components and devices such as waveguide components and superconductor-insulator-superconductor (SIS) mixers targeting radio frequencies (RF) in the 275-500 GHz range and an intermediate frequency (IF) bandwidth of 3-22 GHz. Based on the developed components, quantum-limited low-noise performance has been demonstrated by using a double-sideband receiver frontend in combination with a high-speed digitizer. In addition, a preliminary demonstration of a wideband RF/IF sideband-separating SIS mixer was performed. This paper describes the status of our efforts to develop technology toward wideband receivers for ALMA.
KEYWORDS: Receivers, Polarization, Heterodyning, Telescopes, Superconductors, Temperature metrology, Single sideband modulation, Radio telescopes, Astronomy, Clouds
The ASTE (Atacama Submillimeter Telescope Experiment) is a 10-m submillimeter telescope located near the ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) site in Chile. Recently, the ASTE heterodyne receiver system has been upgraded with a new cryostat and two sub-mm-wave heterodyne receivers. The cryostat has three receiver ports. Its cooling capacity is improved with new design compared to a previous three-cartridge cryostat. The two new receivers are dual polarization Superconductor-Insulator-Superconductor (SIS) sideband-separating receivers in 345 GHz and 460 GHz bands. The 345 GHz band receiver has 55 GHz bandwidth. The single-sideband noise temperature TSSB measured in the laboratory is between 62 K and 440 K. The 460 GHz band receiver was originally an engineering qualification model of the ALMA Band 8 cartridge. The design of SIS mixer devices has been optimized for full coverage of ALMA Band 8 frequency (385-500 GHz). TSSB of the receiver is between 98 K and 257 K. The receiver system was installed on ASTE in March 2017. We have started to provide it for open-use observations after our CSV (Commissioning and Science Verification) activities.
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