On refocusing a radio telescope to image sources in the near field of the antenna array

摘要

A theoretical model is developed for describing the operation of a radio telescope using techniques from optical coherence theory. This model is then used to develop a more systematic approach to the problem of refocusing a radio telescope to image sources which are within the near-field of the antenna array when the antenna array is in the far field of the source distribution. This is done by refocusing the telescope onto the sources in analogy to a photographic camera. Two methods for refocusing the telescope are described which would require no modification to most existing telescopes. In the first method, refocusing is accomplished either electronically by curving the antenna array into a portion of a hemisphere with a center at the source, or, alternatively by processing the correlation function data obtained from the antennas in a somewhat modified manner.