论文标题
无线电干涉仪未检测到的扩展源的上限计算器(UL-CALC):无线电光环上限
An upper limit calculator (UL-CALC) for undetected extended sources with radio interferometers: radio halo upper limits
论文作者
论文摘要
无线电光环是扩散的,主要在大规模合并星系簇中检测到的无线电发射的扩展来源。在未检测到的较小和/或放松的簇中,可以将上限放置在可能的无线电发射中。检测和上限对于约束无线电光环的理论模型都至关重要。上限取决于无线电干涉仪的模型,因此获得这些干涉仪的过程是手动执行的。在本文中,我们提出了一种基于Python的工具,以自动化估计上限的过程。该工具允许用户创建具有定义参数(例如物理大小,红移和亮度模型)的无线电光环。然后根据图像的RMS噪声确定具有一系列通量密度的无线电晕模型家族,然后将其注入父可视性文件中并成像。然后将晕片注入的图像和原始图像进行比较,以使用检测到的多余的通量密度的阈值检查无线电晕检测。一旦确定上限的粗范围,就可以进行磁通密度差异的注射量。该代码建议上限,并提供一系列用于手动检查的图像。然后,用户可以决定上限。我们讨论此工具的优点和局限性。在持续的和即将进行的所有天空调查中,使用Lofar和SKA进行了更广泛的用法,目的是限制无线电光环形成的物理。该工具可在https://github.com/lijotgeorge/ul-calc上公开获取。
Radio halos are diffuse, extended sources of radio emission detected primarily in massive, merging galaxy clusters. In smaller and/or relaxed clusters, where no halos are detected, one can instead place upper limits to a possible radio emission. Detections and upper limits are both crucial to constrain theoretical models for the generation of radio halos. The upper limits are model dependent for radio interferometers and thus the process of obtaining these is tedious to perform manually. In this paper, we present a Python based tool to automate this process of estimating the upper limits. The tool allows users to create radio halos with defined parameters like physical size, redshift and brightness model. A family of radio halo models with a range of flux densities, decided based on the rms noise of the image, is then injected into the parent visibility file and imaged. The halo injected image and the original image are then compared to check for the radio halo detection using a threshold on the detected excess flux density. Injections separated by finer differences in the flux densities are carried out once the coarse range where the upper limit is likely to be located has been identified. The code recommends an upper limit and provides a range of images for manual inspection. The user may then decide on the upper limit. We discuss the advantages and limitations of this tool. A wider usage of this tool in the context of the ongoing and upcoming all sky surveys with the LOFAR and SKA is proposed with the aim of constraining the physics of radio halo formation. The tool is publicly available at https://github.com/lijotgeorge/UL-CALC.