Speaker
Description
Accurate calibration of instrumental polarization is essential for extracting magnetic field information from polarized radio emissions in astrophysical, heliospheric, and geospace environments. At meter wavelengths, this task becomes complicated due to the lack of bright polarized calibrators, a consequence of strong Faraday depolarization. We present a new calibration framework tailored for wide-field, low-frequency instruments such as the MWA, LOFAR, NenuFAR, OVRO-LWA, and SKAO-Low. This approach utilizes the apparent polarization of the intrinsically unpolarized sky, induced by the instrument’s polarized primary beam response, as a calibration reference. Crucially, it eliminates the need for bright polarized sources and remains unaffected by ionospheric Faraday rotation. Validation with MWA data demonstrates the reliability and precision of this method. By overcoming longstanding challenges in low-frequency polarization calibration, this formalism enables robust polarimetric studies with the MWA and similar instruments, expanding our ability to probe cosmic magnetic fields.
| Timeslot preferences | 20min |
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