Status and capabilities of the Australian LBA Phil Diamond Chief, Astronomy & Space Science

Overview Overview of the LBA Recent usage Recent developments eVLBI progress ATNF user affiliations Looking ahead

The Long Baseline Array (LBA) Operated as a National Facility by CSIRO, in close cooperation with Uni. of Tasmania & Curtin Uni. Core elements: ATCA (5x22m), Mopra (22m), Parkes (64m), Ceduna (30m), Hobart (26m) + Tidbinbilla (70m & 34m), Hart (26m), TIGO (6m), O’Higgins (9m), Warkworth (12m), … + ASKAP Traditionally 3 x ~1 week sessions per year, evolving toward more frequent, shorter sessions Observations in the 20, 13, 6, 3, 1cm bands Max. bit-rate 1Gbps (ATNF), 512Mbps (elsewhere) Disk-based recorders (with most data later streamed to correlator) or/and eVLBI on a subset of the array DiFX software correlator (Deller et al. 2007, 2011)

Radio Telescopes in Australia x Katherine x New Norcia x Yarragadee x ASKAP x

The LBA in 2010 Six sessions March, May, July, October, November, December A total of 24 days 34 observations 3x22GHz, 16x8.4GHz, 8x6.7GHz, 3x2.3GHz, 4x1.4GHz 15 projects -- led by 14 different PIs 7 from Australia and 7 from overseas ~5% test and development time The LBA is oversubscribed: about 2/3 of proposals are allocated some observing time Separate Parkes & Hobart (and new AuScope 3x12m array) participation in IVS

Observing time (in hrs) by year and band cm cm /6cm cm cm total

Recent LBA publications First VLBI Detection of the Radio Remnant of Supernova 1987A: Evidence for Small-scale Features (Ng et al ApJL in press, arXiv: ) The LBA Calibrator Survey of southern compact extragalactic radio sources - LCS1 (Petrov et al PASA in press, arXiv: ) Evolution of the Parsec-scale Structure of PKS Revisited: First Science with the ASKAP and New Zealand Telescopes (Tzioumis et al AJ 140, 1506) TANAMI: tracking active galactic nuclei with austral milliarcsecond interferometry. I. First-epoch 8.4 GHz images (Ojha et al A&A 519, A45) LBA observations of the maser cluster OH (Caswell et al MNRAS 402, 2649) Implications of a VLBI Distance to the Double Pulsar J A/B (Deller et al Science 323, 1327) Parsec-Scale Shocks in the Kiloparsec-Scale Jet of Centaurus A (Tingay & Lenc 2009 AJ 138, 808)

ATCA Mopra Parkes Sydney To Seattle 10 Gbps eVLBI – Gbps links between existing ATNF sites

eVLBI Current Status Up to 1Gbps between At-Mp-Pa is available Correlate on a computer cluster at Narrabri 128 Mbps to Hobart, and improvement in connection across Bass Strait to 1 Gbps expected in Q1 this year Successful eVLBI demonstrations with Shanghai, Kashima, JIVE, and HartRAO at 512Mbps 512Mbps link to Warkworth (NZ) now available Participation in EXPReS and NEXPReS 9 th eVLBI Workshop held in Perth, Oct 2010 (see

Antennas 36 x 12m, three-axis design Max baseline 8 km Frequency 700–1800 MHz FOV 30 deg 2 Bandwidth 300 MHz Channels 16k PAF 10x10x2 T sys ~35 K Six element test array (BETA) in 2011 ASKAP at the Murchison Radio Observatory Jan Sept/Oct 2010 ASKAP operational in Q2 2013

ASKAP + Ww First fringes at 20cm between LBA and first ASKAP antenna and Warkworth 12m in New Zealand in April/May Observations made of Cen A and PKS Ww to formally join LBA for observations at 1.4, 2.3 and 8.4 GHz.

MRO MRO Ceduna Hobart Parkes ATCA Tidbinbilla Warkworth The Expanding LBA

User affiliation by time allocated, PI AffiliationATCAParkesMopra ATNF 41% 38% 12% Non-ATNF Australian 24% 16% 40% Overseas 35% 46% 48% All investigators ATCAParkesMopra ATNF 32% 26% 12% Non-ATNF Australian 25% 24% 25% Overseas 43% 50% 63%

Future challenges & opportunities LBA data to be added to ATOA (on-line archive) this year Hydrogen Maser on order for ASKAP Addition of 20cm band to Ceduna planned The LBA DASs will soon need replacing Opportunities for collaboration with VLBA… cumvlbaobs.txt file indicates VLBA observes sources with dec < 0 for ~21% of time Best overlap with MK, OV, KP, PT, LA, FD …and EAVN and AuScope and space VLBI New 34m antennas funded for Tidbinbilla Improved eVLBI access expected for Hobart, Warkworth, and possibly Tid, but unlikely for Ceduna

More information Next proposal deadlines June 15 and Dec 15 Information about the LBA Sensitivity calculator LBA data into on-line archive atoa.atnf.csiro.au (coming soon)

Thank you CSIRO/ATNF Phil Diamond Chief, Astronomy & Space Science, CSIRO Web: Contact Us Phone: or Web: