Abstract
This paper presents a survey of microwave front-end receivers installed at radio telescopes throughout the world. This unprecedented analysis was conducted as part of a review of front-end developments for Italian radio telescopes, initiated by the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics in 2016. Fifteen international radio telescopes have been selected to be representative of the instrumentation used for radio astronomical observations in the frequency domain from 300 MHz to 116 GHz. A comprehensive description of the existing receivers is presented and their characteristics are compared and discussed. The observing performances of the complete receiving chains are also presented. An overview of ongoing developments illustrates and anticipates future trends in front-end projects to meet the most ambitious scientific research goals.
Highlights
Front-end receivers represent one of the more sensitive and crucial components in the receiving scheme of a radio telescope
Bolli et al, 2018 An International Survey of Front-End Receivers and Observing Performance of Telescopes for Radio Astronomy the back-end components, which represent another fundamental technological area, digitize the signal for further processing according to the specific astronomical requirements
The telescope is currently equipped with three different front-ends that cover the frequency range from 70 to 370 GHz with very small gaps, closely matching the main atmospheric transmission windows: EMIR is a four-band (3 mm, 2 mm, 1.3 mm and 0.8 mm), single-pixel, dual-sideband, 8-GHz-wide Intermediate Frequency (IF), dual-polarization heterodyne receiver; HERA is a 3 x 3 multi-beam with dual-polarization, single-sideband receiver operating in the 1.3 mm band; and the recently installed NIKA2 is a continuum camera based on LEKID detectors with a 616 pixel array in the 2 mm band plus another 2 x 1140 pixel array in the 1.3 mm band
Summary
Front-end receivers represent one of the more sensitive and crucial components in the receiving scheme of a radio telescope. After that, Bolli et al, 2018 An International Survey of Front-End Receivers and Observing Performance of Telescopes for Radio Astronomy the back-end components, which represent another fundamental technological area, digitize the signal for further processing according to the specific astronomical requirements. Besides these developments, significant efforts have been made to improve the performance of each single microwave component making up the front-end chain, for instance reducing the receiver noise temperature and increasing the frequency bandwidth.
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