Making Science-Ready Solar Radio Images from SKAO Precursors using P-AIRCARS and MeerSOLAR

Devojyoti Kansabanik1 (NASA Jack Eddy Fellow) [email protected] Angelos Vourlidas1, Deepan Patra2, Surajit Mondal2, Marcel Gouws3, Divya Oberoi2, Soham Dey2, Puja Majee2 1Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, USA, 2National Centre for Radio Astrophysics, TIFR, Pune, India,3 South-African Radio Astronomy Observatory, South Africa Making Science-Ready Solar Radio Images from SKAO Precursors using P-AIRCARS and MeerSOLAR Solar Radio Science Enable by Spectropolarimetric Snapshot Imaging Two fully automated and user-friendly pipelines for SKA precursors P-AIRCARS Kansabanik et al., ApJS, V264,47 ● For Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) ● Frequency range — 80-300 MHz ● 0.25s, 10kHz full polar spectroscopic snapshot imaging with dynamic range ~300 — 105. ● All raw data are publicly available under project G0002 from https://asvo.mwatelescope.org/ MeerSOLAR Kansabanik et al., 2025, Front. Astron. Space Sci. 12:1666743 ● For MeerKAT radio telescope ● Frequency range — 580-1700 MHz ● 8s, 1 MHz, full polar high-quality spectroscopic snapshot imaging ● Solar observing mode is in commissioning stage ● Contact author for initial science verification data taken on 9-11 June, 2024) ● Solar radio emission is a probe for non-thermal electrons and magnetic field of solar corona. ● Most of the studies, so far, used non-imaging dynamic spectrum. ● Spectropolarimetric and snapshot imaging can provide a seven dimensional information (I, Q, U, V, x, y, f, t), rather than two-dimensional dynamic spectrum. Need high-dynamic-range capability — as bright emissions and faint emissions may present simultaneously and no radio coronagraph. Capable New-generation Instruments and Challenges MeerKAT, SKA-mid precursor MWA, SKA-low precursor ● Radio interferometry – required for spatial resolution, but it is a Fourier imaging. ● Dense array coverage is required to make high quality spectroscopic snapshot images. ●World’s largest radio telescope — Square Kilometre Array (SKA) and its precursors meet that. ● Raw data volume is huge, ~10GB/s for precursors and ~TB/s for SKA. ● Total science-ready spectroscopic snapshot images ~ few million from few minutes of observations. ● Impossible to calibrate and image manually ● Radio data calibration also have a steep learning curve. ● Both of them developed for handling large data volume and run on both local and HPC infrastructure ● Python packing, easy to install and use without specific a-priori radio interferometric training ● Expected to be the workhorse for SKAO in future Science-ready Imaging Products and Science Results ● Spectropolarimetric snapshot image cubes in fits format — time and frequency resolution is of user-choice (minimum is limited by instrument resolution). ● Enabled science cases — particle by reconnection and shocks(type-I, II, III), radio emission from coronal mass ejections (type-IV and gyrosynchrotron) to measure magnetic field, quiet Sun, nanoflares, etc. A sample image from MeerKAT produced automatically using MeerSOLAR