The Southern Twenty-centimetre All-sky Polarization Survey (STAPS): survey description and maps

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Sun, Xiaohui, Haverkorn, Marijke, Carretti, Ettore, Landecker, Tom, Gaensler, B. M., Poppi, Sergio, Staveley-Smith, Lister, Gao, Xuyang, Han, Jinlin
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866913664337969152
author Sun, Xiaohui
Haverkorn, Marijke
Carretti, Ettore
Landecker, Tom
Gaensler, B. M.
Poppi, Sergio
Staveley-Smith, Lister
Gao, Xuyang
Han, Jinlin
author_facet Sun, Xiaohui
Haverkorn, Marijke
Carretti, Ettore
Landecker, Tom
Gaensler, B. M.
Poppi, Sergio
Staveley-Smith, Lister
Gao, Xuyang
Han, Jinlin
contents We present data processing and verification of the Southern Twenty-centimetre All-sky Polarization Survey (STAPS) conducted with Murriyang, the Parkes 64-m telescope. The survey covers the sky area of -89<Dec<0 and the frequency range of 1.3-1.8 GHz split into 1-MHz channels. STAPS was observed commensally with the S-band Polarization All-Sky Survey (S-PASS). The survey is composed of long azimuth scans, which allows us to absolutely calibrate Stokes Q and U with the data processing procedure developed for S-PASS. We obtain I, Q, and U maps in both flux density scale (Jy/beam) and main beam brightness temperature scale (K), for the 301 frequency channels with sufficiently good data. The temperature scale is tied to the Global Magneto-ionic Medium Survey (GMIMS) high-band north sky survey conducted with the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory 26-m telescope. All the STAPS maps are smoothed to a common resolution of 20 arcmin. The rms noise per channel ranges from about 16 mK to 8 mK for I, and from about 8 mK to 5 mK for Q and U at frequencies from 1.3 to 1.8 GHz. The rms noise in Q and U varies with declination and reaches minimum at declination of -89 degree. We also run rotation measure (RM) synthesis and RM clean to obtain peak polarized intensity and Faraday depth maps. The whole STAPS data processing is validated by comparing flux densities of compact sources, pixel flux density versus pixel flux density for Cen A, pixel temperature versus pixel temperature for the entire survey area, and RMs of extragalactic sources between STAPS and other measurements. The uncertainty of the flux density scale is less than 10%. STAPS delivers an L-band (20 cm) multi-frequency polarization view of the Galaxy, and will help advance our understanding of the Galactic magnetic field and magnetized interstellar medium.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2501_14203
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The Southern Twenty-centimetre All-sky Polarization Survey (STAPS): survey description and maps
Sun, Xiaohui
Haverkorn, Marijke
Carretti, Ettore
Landecker, Tom
Gaensler, B. M.
Poppi, Sergio
Staveley-Smith, Lister
Gao, Xuyang
Han, Jinlin
Astrophysics of Galaxies
We present data processing and verification of the Southern Twenty-centimetre All-sky Polarization Survey (STAPS) conducted with Murriyang, the Parkes 64-m telescope. The survey covers the sky area of -89<Dec<0 and the frequency range of 1.3-1.8 GHz split into 1-MHz channels. STAPS was observed commensally with the S-band Polarization All-Sky Survey (S-PASS). The survey is composed of long azimuth scans, which allows us to absolutely calibrate Stokes Q and U with the data processing procedure developed for S-PASS. We obtain I, Q, and U maps in both flux density scale (Jy/beam) and main beam brightness temperature scale (K), for the 301 frequency channels with sufficiently good data. The temperature scale is tied to the Global Magneto-ionic Medium Survey (GMIMS) high-band north sky survey conducted with the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory 26-m telescope. All the STAPS maps are smoothed to a common resolution of 20 arcmin. The rms noise per channel ranges from about 16 mK to 8 mK for I, and from about 8 mK to 5 mK for Q and U at frequencies from 1.3 to 1.8 GHz. The rms noise in Q and U varies with declination and reaches minimum at declination of -89 degree. We also run rotation measure (RM) synthesis and RM clean to obtain peak polarized intensity and Faraday depth maps. The whole STAPS data processing is validated by comparing flux densities of compact sources, pixel flux density versus pixel flux density for Cen A, pixel temperature versus pixel temperature for the entire survey area, and RMs of extragalactic sources between STAPS and other measurements. The uncertainty of the flux density scale is less than 10%. STAPS delivers an L-band (20 cm) multi-frequency polarization view of the Galaxy, and will help advance our understanding of the Galactic magnetic field and magnetized interstellar medium.
title The Southern Twenty-centimetre All-sky Polarization Survey (STAPS): survey description and maps
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.14203