GROUND-BASED HIGH SENSITIVITY RADIO ASTRONOMY AT DECAMETER WAVELENGTHS

Abstract

The decameter wave radio spectrum (~10-50 MHz) suffers a very high pollution by manmade interference. However, it is a range well-suited to the search for exoplanets and the study of planetary (especially Saturnian) lightning, provided that very high sensitivity (~1 Jansky) is available at high time resolution (0.1-1 second). Such conditions require a very large decameter radiotelescope and a broad, clean frequency band of observation. The latter can be achieved only through the use of a broadband multichannel-type receiving system, efficient data processing techniques for eliminating interference, and selection and integration of non-polluted frequency channels. This processing is then followed by an algorithm performing bursts detection and measuring their significance. These requirements have been met with the installation of an Acousto-Optical Spectrograph at the giant Ukrainian radiotelescope UTR-2, and four observations campaigns of Jupiter, Saturn, and the environment of nearby ...