Abstract Details
| Name: Yashwant Gupta Affiliation: National Centre for Radio Astrophysics Conference ID: ASI2018_845 Title : The upgraded GMRT : Overview and Prospects for Pulsar Studies Authors and Co-Authors : Yashwant Gupta NCRA-TIFR Abstract Type : Invited Abstract Category : Plenary Abstract : In the 15 years since its inception, the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) has established itself as a major international Radio Astronomy facility in the low frequency regime of 150 MHz to 1500 MHz. Consisting of 30 fully steerable antennas of 45 metre diameter each, it can be used as an aperture-synthesis array for imaging, as well as a phased array to study compact radio sources such as pulsars, in any of five discrete observing bands, with a maximum bandwidth of 32 MHz. The GMRT is currently undergoing a major upgrade that will improve its sensitivity by a factor of upto three and make it a much more versatile instrument. The goal is to have seamless frequency coverage from about 100 to 1500 MHz, with a maximum instantaneous bandwidth of 400 MHz; improved receiver systems with higher G/Tsys; versatile digital back-end correlator and pulsar receiver using the latest FPGA and GPU technologies; revamped servo system; sophisticated monitor and control system; and matching improvements in infrastructure and computing. This upgrade will keep the GMRT at the forefront as one of the most sensitive facility in the world in the 100 to 1500 MHz range, till the SKA phase I comes along. Most of the sub-systems of the upgraded GMRT (uGMRT) are nearing completion and delivery, and the upgraded observatory is being made available to users in a phased manner from April 2016 onwards, and the full uGMRT is expected to be released by April 2018. An overview of the upgrade activities, their current status and future plans, including specific challenges faced, will be described. The uGMRT will allow much more sensitive observations of pulsars to be carried out. Some of the first science results in this context will be presented, and the future potential for pulsar studies with the uGMRT will be highlighted. |