The Deep Synoptic Array 110, or DSA-110 is a

radio telescope A radio telescope is a specialized antenna (radio), antenna and radio receiver used to detect radio waves from astronomical radio sources in the sky. Radio telescopes are the main observing instrument used in radio astronomy, which studies the r ...

located at the Owens Valley Radio Observatory in

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

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. The main goal is the study of

fast radio burst In radio astronomy, a fast radio burst (FRB) is a transient radio wave of length ranging from a fraction of a millisecond, for an ultra-fast radio burst, to 3 seconds, caused by a high-energy astrophysical process as yet not understood. Astronome ...

s, or FRBs. The telescope is an array of 110 dishes, each 4.65 meters in diameter. They continuously survey for FRBs at frequencies between 1280 – 1530 MHz. A real-time pipeline searches the data from the 95 element core array to generate alerts, and also triggers recordings of the array and 15 outrigger antennas for the purpose of off-line (but more accurate) localization. The project is funded by the

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Relation to the DSA-2000

In many ways, the DSA-110 is a precursor to the larger and more powerful DSA-2000, which will have 2000 fully steerable (as opposed to the DSA-110's elevation only) 5 meter dishes. Both arrays use the same ambient temperature receiver technology, with fiber optic transmission to a central processing facility. The DSA-2000, however, has a different main purpose, acting as a ''radio camera'' to create an archive of full sky images.

Ambient temperature receiver

Traditional radio telescope receivers have required cooling (often to

cryogenic In physics, cryogenics is the production and behaviour of materials at very low temperatures. The 13th International Institute of Refrigeration's (IIR) International Congress of Refrigeration (held in Washington, DC in 1971) endorsed a univers ...

temperatures) to get low enough noise to be useful for astronomical observations. This typically resulted in a cost of at least $100,000 per receiver, making arrays with a large number of antennas impractical. However, recent developments in

indium phosphide Indium phosphide (InP) is a binary semiconductor composed of indium and phosphorus. It has a face-centered cubic ("zincblende (crystal structure), zincblende") crystal structure, identical to that of gallium arsenide, GaAs and most of the List of ...

technology have resulting in transistors with a low enough

noise figure Noise figure (NF) and noise factor (''F'') are figures of merit that indicate degradation of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) that is caused by components in a signal chain. These figures of merit are used to evaluate the performance of an amplifie ...

at room temperature to remove the need for cooling.

Uses

Over a three-year science program, the DSA-110 is expected to localize more than 300 FRBs to better than 3 arcseconds (<1/1000 of a degree). This seems plausible as during commissioning, with 63 antennas active, more than one FRB per week was localized. DSA-110 maintains a website with science results to date.

References

External links

Main DSA-100 Project website

Main site for DSA-2000

Astronomers thought they understood fast radio bursts. A recent one calls that into question.
Another FRB search effort {{Portal bar, United States, Astronomy, Stars, Outer space, Education, Science Gravitational wave observatories Astronomical observatories in the United States Radio astronomy Astronomy organizations