An experimental method to determine maximum resolving power in antenna array for transient radio telescope system

摘要

Array antenna has been utilized in many radio telescope systems, especially for low frequency transient observation, to increase their resolving power. In this paper, a new method to determine the maximum resolving power of an array radio telescope based on the single antenna beamwidth is proposed. The method is derived from theoretical calculations combined with simulations. Statistical result shows that the equation inherits a standard error of 0.99, and hence is suitable to be used for rough calculation in determining an array maximum resolving power. It also can be used to estimate the maximum resolving power of an interferometer system with a slightly lower precision at very long baseline.