maria: A novel simulator for forecasting (sub-)mm observations

arXiv (Cornell University)

Abstract

Millimeter-wave single-dish telescopes offer two key advantages compared to interferometers: they can efficiently map larger portions of the sky, and they can recover larger spatial scales. Nonetheless, fluctuations in the atmosphere limit the accurate retrieval of signals from astronomical sources. To efficiently reduce atmospheric noise and filtering effects in current and future facilities, we introduce {\tt maria}, a versatile and user-friendly multi-purpose telescope simulator that optimizes scanning strategies and instrument designs, produces synthetic time-ordered data, time streams, and maps from hydrodynamical simulations, thereby enabling a fair comparison between theory and observations. Each mock observatory scans through the atmosphere in a configurable pattern over the celestial object. We generate evolving and location-and-time-specific weather for each of the fiducial sites using a combination of satellite and ground-based measurements. While {\tt maria} is a generic virtual telescope, this study specifically focuses on mimicking broadband bolometers observing at 100 GHz. We compare the mock time streams with real MUSTANG-2 observations and find that they are quantitatively similar by conducting a k-sample Anderson-Darling test resulting in a p-value of p<0.001. Subsequently, we image the TODs to create noise maps and realistic mock observations of clusters of galaxies for both MUSTANG-2 and an instrument concept for the 50m Atacama Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (AtLAST). Furthermore, using {\tt maria}, we find that a 50m dish provides the highest levels of correlation of atmospheric signals across adjacent detectors compared to smaller apertures (e.g., 42-cm and 6-m), facilitating removal of atmospheric signal on large scales.

Authors 9

1. Joshiwa van Marrewijk Aachen Leiden Observatory

   Leiden University · European Southern Observatory · Leiden Observatory

   Affiliation as printed

   European Southern Observatory (ESO) , Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2 , Garching 85748 , Germany

   Leiden Observatory , Leiden University , P.O. Box 9513 , 2300 RA Leiden , The Netherlands

2. Tony K. Mroczkowski

   European Southern Observatory

   Affiliation as printed

   European Southern Observatory (ESO) , Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2 , Garching 85748 , Germany

3. C. Cicone

   University of Oslo

   Affiliation as printed

   Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics , University of Oslo , P.O. Box 1029 , Blindern , 0315 Oslo , Norway

4. Simon Dicker

   University of Pennsylvania

   Affiliation as printed

   University of Pennsylvania , 209 S. 33rd St. , Philadelphia , PA 19014 , USA

5. Luca Di Mascolo
6. Saianeesh K. Haridas

   University of Pennsylvania

   Affiliation as printed

   University of Pennsylvania , 209 S. 33rd St. , Philadelphia , PA 19014 , USA

7. John L. Orlowski-Scherer

   University of Pennsylvania

   Affiliation as printed

   University of Pennsylvania , 209 S. 33rd St. , Philadelphia , PA 19014 , USA

8. Elena Rasia
9. C. Romero

   Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian

   Affiliation as printed

   Center for Astrophysics , Harvard & Smithsonian , 60 Garden Street , Cambridge , MA 02138 , USA