A multioctave 8 GHz-40 GHz receiver for radio astronomy

Abstract

Accurate measurement of angular positions on the sky requires a well-defined system of reference, something that in practice is realized by the International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF) with observations of distant (typical redshift similar to 1) Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). At such great distances a subset of these objects exhibit as little as 10-50 mu as/year observed parallax or proper motion, thus giving the frame excellent spatial and temporal stability. Until fairly recently the majority of AGN centered imaging was accomplished in the S (2.3 GHz) and X (8.4 GHz) radio frequency bands, however S-band observations for reasons such as sensitivity "plateauing", increased source structure (jets), and radio frequency interference (RFI) have become less productive. Following spacecraft telemetry moves to higher frequencies and a desire to strengthen JPL's leadership in defining the next-generation of celestial reference frames has motivated the development of a "Quad-band" prototype receiver that operates in X, Ku, K, and Ka band in both right hand (RCP) and left hand (LCP) circular polarization. The goal of this receiver is to achieve less than a 20 % increase in noise over the Jansky Very Large Array (JVLA, NRAO) performance specification, which in such a wide bandwidth represents a revolutionary capability. To evaluate the various technical developments of the 8 GHz-40 GHz receiver the feedhorn optical beam was designed to interface to the US based Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA). The receiver's intermediate frequency (IF) spans 4 GHz-8 GHz, giving rise to up to eight 4 GHz IF channels for a fully populated instrument. This paper outlines the technical development of a 21/2 octave wide (8 GHz-40 GHz) X-Ka band prototype receiver, fulfilling a need for super broadband technology within the VLBI network. An important additional benefit of the wideband receiver approach is its simplicity and low cost of operation.