MeerKAT calibrator sources polarization properties Virtual Observatory Resource

Authors
  1. Taylor A.R.
  2. Legodi L.S.
  3. Published by
    CDS
Abstract

We report on full-Stokes L-band observations of 98 MeerKAT calibration sources. Linear polarization is detected in 71 objects above a fractional level of 0.2%. We identify ten sources with strong fractional linear polarization and low Faraday rotation measure that could be suitable for wide-band absolute polarization calibration. We detect significant circular polarization from 24% of the sample down to a detection level of 0.07%. Circularly polarized emission is seen only for flat spectrum sources {alpha}>-0.5. We compare our polarized intensities and Faraday synthesis results to data from the NVSS at 1400MHz and the ATCA SPASS survey at 2300MHz. NVSS data exist for 54 of our sources and SPASS data for 20 sources. The percent polarization and rotation measures from both surveys agree well with our results. The residual instrumental linear polarization for these observations is measured at 0.16%, and the residual instrumental circular polarization is measured at 0.05%. These levels may reflect either instabilities in the relative bandpass between the two polarization channels with either time or antenna orientation, or atmospheric/ionospheric variations with pointing direction. Tracking of the hourly gain solutions on J0408-6545 after transfer of the primary gain solutions suggests a deterioration of the gain stability by a factor of several starting about 2hr after sunrise. This suggests that observing during the nighttime could dramatically improve the precision of polarization calibration.

Keywords
  1. radio-continuum-emission
  2. interferometry
  3. active-galactic-nuclei
Bibliographic source Bibcode
2024AJ....167..273T
See also HTML
https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/AJ/167/273
IVOA Identifier IVOID
ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/AJ/167/273

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History

2024-07-01T08:03:17Z
Resource record created
2024-07-01T08:03:17Z
Created
2024-10-01T05:56:20Z
Updated

Contact

Name
CDS support team
Postal Address
CDS, Observatoire de Strasbourg, 11 rue de l'Universite, F-67000 Strasbourg, France
E-Mail
cds-question@unistra.fr