Multidimensional RFI Framework for Characterising Radio Astronomy Observatories

Understand

Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) has historically plagued radio astronomy, worsening with the rapid spread of electronics and increasing telescope sensitivity.

• We present a multi-dimensional probabilistic framework for characterising the RFI environment around a radio astronomy site that uses automatically flagged data from the array itself.
• We illustrate the framework using about 1500 hours of commissioning data from the MeerKAT radio telescope; producing a 6-dimensional array that yields both average RFI occupancy as well as confidence intervals around the mean as a function of key variables (frequency, direction, baseline, time).
• Our results provide the first detailed view of the MeerKAT RFI environment at high sensitivity as a function of direction, frequency, time of day and baseline.