TY - JOUR
T1 - MeqSilhouette v2
T2 - Spectrally resolved polarimetric synthetic data generation for the event horizon telescope
AU - Natarajan, Iniyan
AU - Deane, Roger
AU - Martí-Vidal, Iván
AU - Roelofs, Freek
AU - Janssen, Michael
AU - Wielgus, MacIek
AU - Blackburn, Lindy
AU - Blecher, Tariq
AU - Perkins, Simon
AU - Smirnov, Oleg
AU - Davelaar, Jordy
AU - Moscibrodzka, Monika
AU - Chael, Andrew
AU - Bouman, Katherine L.
AU - Kim, Jae Young
AU - Bernardi, Gianni
AU - Van Bemmel, Ilse
AU - Falcke, Heino
AU - Özel, Feryal
AU - Psaltis, Dimitrios
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Astronomical Society.
PY - 2022/5/1
Y1 - 2022/5/1
N2 - We present MeqSilhouette v2.0 (MeqSv2), a fully polarimetric, time-and frequency-resolved synthetic data generation software for simulating millimetre (mm) wavelength very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) observations with heterogeneous arrays. Synthetic data are a critical component in understanding real observations, testing calibration and imaging algorithms, and predicting performance metrics of existing or proposed sites. MeqSv2 applies physics-based instrumental and atmospheric signal corruptions constrained by empirically derived site and station parameters to the data. The new version is capable of applying instrumental polarization effects and various other spectrally resolved effects using the Radio Interferometry Measurement Equation (RIME) formalism and produces synthetic data compatible with calibration pipelines designed to process real data. We demonstrate the various corruption capabilities of MeqSv2 using different arrays, with a focus on the effect of complex bandpass gains on closure quantities for the EHT at 230 GHz. We validate the frequency-dependent polarization leakage implementation by performing polarization self-calibration of synthetic EHT data using PolSolve. We also note the potential applications for cm-wavelength VLBI array analysis and design and future directions.
AB - We present MeqSilhouette v2.0 (MeqSv2), a fully polarimetric, time-and frequency-resolved synthetic data generation software for simulating millimetre (mm) wavelength very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) observations with heterogeneous arrays. Synthetic data are a critical component in understanding real observations, testing calibration and imaging algorithms, and predicting performance metrics of existing or proposed sites. MeqSv2 applies physics-based instrumental and atmospheric signal corruptions constrained by empirically derived site and station parameters to the data. The new version is capable of applying instrumental polarization effects and various other spectrally resolved effects using the Radio Interferometry Measurement Equation (RIME) formalism and produces synthetic data compatible with calibration pipelines designed to process real data. We demonstrate the various corruption capabilities of MeqSv2 using different arrays, with a focus on the effect of complex bandpass gains on closure quantities for the EHT at 230 GHz. We validate the frequency-dependent polarization leakage implementation by performing polarization self-calibration of synthetic EHT data using PolSolve. We also note the potential applications for cm-wavelength VLBI array analysis and design and future directions.
KW - software: simulations
KW - techniques: high angular resolution
KW - techniques: interferometric
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U2 - 10.1093/mnras/stac531
DO - 10.1093/mnras/stac531
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85127968516
SN - 0035-8711
VL - 512
SP - 490
EP - 504
JO - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
JF - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
IS - 1
ER -