Leif Helldner

Cryogenic 2–13 GHz Eleven Feed for Reflector Antennas in Future Wideband Radio Telescopes

The system design of a cryogenic 2-13 GHz feed is considered with emphasis on its application in future wideband radio telescope systems. The feed is based on the so-called Eleven antenna and the design requires careful integration of various sub-designs in order to realize cryogenic operation. The various sub-designs include the electrical design of the Eleven antenna, design of the critical center puck, alternative solutions for integrating the Eleven antenna with low-noise amplifiers (LNAs), mechanical and cryogenic design and tests, and system noise temperature estimation and measurements. A great deal of simulated and measured results are presented throughout this paper, including the electrical, mechanical and cryogenic performance, and an assessment of the system noise temperature. The objective of this work is to present a good feed candidate that is well-suited for VLBI2010 and SKA radio telescopes. Further developments needed to completely fulfill the requirements for these future wideband radio telescopes are also discussed.

APEX: the Atacama Pathfinder EXperiment

APEX, the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment, has been successfully commissioned and is in operation now. This novel submillimeter telescope is located at 5107 m altitude on Llano de Chajnantor in the Chilean High Andes, on what is considered one of the worlds outstanding sites for submillimeter astronomy. The primary reflector with 12 m diameter has been carefully adjusted by means of holography. Its surface smoothness of 17-18 μm makes APEX suitable for observations up to 200 μm, through all atmospheric submm windows accessible from the ground.

Design of Compact Dual-Polarized 1.2–10 GHz Eleven Feed for Decade Bandwidth Radio Telescopes

The Eleven antenna is a log-periodic folded-dipole-pair array with two unique radiation characteristics: a constant beamwidth and a fixed phase center location over a decade bandwidth. This paper presents a new compact design of a 1.2-10 GHz Eleven antenna, as a feed for reflector antennas by re-arranging the geometry of the outermost elements of the antenna. Due to the compact size, it is possible to put the whole feed system inside a compact cryostat and cool it down to cryogenic temperatures, in order to reduce the system noise temperature in radio telescope applications. The new compact Eleven feed has only a 40% volume of the original standard Eleven feed with a very similar performance. This reduces the capacity requirement for the cryogenic cooling system significantly and therefore the power consumption for future radio telescopes, such as the square kilometer array (SKA). The concept behind this compact design is analyzed in the paper. Simulations and measurements presented here have verified the design.

A new 3 mm band receiver for the Onsala 20 m antenna

A new receiver for the Onsala 20 m antenna with the possibility of being equipped with 3 mm and 4 mm bands has been built and the 3 mm channel has been commissioned during the Spring 2014. For single-dish operation, the receiver uses an innovative on-source/off-source optical switch. In combination with additional optical components and within the same optical layout, the switch provides two calibration loads (for the 3 mm and 4 mm channels), sideband rejection measurement, and tuning possibilities. The optical layout of the receiver employs all cold (4 K) offset elliptical mirrors for both channels, whereas the on-off switch employs flat mirrors only. The 3 mm channel employs a sideband separation (2SB) dual polarization receiver with orthomode transducer (OMT), 4-8 GHz intermediate frequency (IF), x? 2pol x? upper and lower sidebands (USB? +? LSB). The cryostat has four optical windows made of high density polyethylene (HDPE) with anti-reflection corrugations, two for the signal and two for each frequency band cold load. The cryostat uses a two-stage cryocooler produced by Sumitomo HI? RDK? 408D2 with anti-vibration suspension of the cold-head to minimize impact of the vibrations on the receiver stability. The local oscillator (LO) system is based on a Gunn oscillator with aphase lock loop (PLL) and four mechanical tuners for broadband operation, providing independently tunable LO power for each polarization. This paper provides a technical description of the receiver and its technology and could be useful for instrumentation engineers and observers using the Onsala 20 m telescope.

Development of a coolable 2–14 GHz Eleven feed for future radio telescopes for SKA and VLBI 2010

The Eleven feed is a log-periodic array of parallel dipoles in Eleven (II) configuration. It exhibits constant beam width and phase center position over a decade bandwidth, and finds therefore application as a wideband feed for reflector antennas. The present paper gives a summary of the present performance of a 2–14 GHz Eleven feed that is under development for use as a feed for VLBI 2010 radio telescopes for geodesy. Previous reported Eleven feeds did not reach that high in frequency. The intention is also to develop a feed that can be integrated with a low noise amplifier inside a cryostat at temperature of 14K, and receive the waves focused by the primary reflector through an RF window in the cryostatic cavity. Thereby the lowest system noise temperature is ensured. The present model has successfully survived cooling to 14 K.

Compact dual-polarized 1.2 - 10 GHz Eleven feed by folding outer elements for large decade-bandwidth radio telescopes

The Eleven antenna is a log-periodic folded-dipole-pair array which has two unique radiation characteristics: constant beamwidth and fixed phase center location over decade bandwidth. Therefore, the Eleven antenna is very suitable as a feed for reflector antennas. This paper presents a new compact design of 1.2 – 10 GHz Eleven antenna by folding down the outermost elements of the array. By doing so, it is possible to put the Eleven feed inside a compact cryostat, which is critical for applications in radio telescopes. The new compacted Eleven antenna has only 40% volume of the original standard Eleven antenna with similar performance. Simulations and measurements have verified the design and are presented in the paper.

Optical design and verification of a 4mm receiver for the 20m telescope at Onsala Space Observatory

The work of this research is the design, analysis and verification of the optical performance of a 4mmreceiver channel for the 20 m telescope at Onsala Space Observatory, Onsala, Sweden. The 4 mm (75 GHz) receiver is a newly proposed channel designed to be installed parallel to the existing 3 mm (100 GHz) channel targeting new science at that longer wavelength. Gaussian beam mode analysis is used to produce the fundamental optical design of the system. The design is then analysed more accurately with the physical optics approximation. We report on the comparison of simulation and measurement and verification of the system design.

Review of recent developments of the Eleven feed for future decade bandwidth radio telescopes

The Eleven feed is a compact, low-profile decade-bandwidth log-periodic dual-dipole array antenna. It has many advantages: a constant phase center location, constant beam width over a decade bandwidth, high BOR1 efficiency, low cross polar level and good reflection coefficient, all over a decade bandwidth. This paper reviews the recent developments on the Eleven feed technology, which covers several important issues for the applications of the feed in decade bandwidth radio telescopes.