GALFACTS

GALFA Continuum Transit Survey

GALFACTS is a project by the GALFA Continuum Consortium to use the new Arecibo L-band Feed Array (ALFA) to carry out a spectro-polarimetric survey of the sky visible from the Arecibo Observatory.

Documents

• GALFACTS Proposal (pdf format 1.2 MBytes)
  
• GALFACTS presentation (2.4 MBytes) to the ALFA Special Session at the Winter 2005 AAS meeting
• GALFACTS Section of GALFA White paper (pdf format 8.4 Mbytes)

Precursor Observations

To develop the observing procedures and data processing techniques for the full survey we are engaging in two pilot studies. The target region depicted below was observed during April-May 20054with the single-feed L-band wide receiver system, and in December 2004 with ALFA.

The imaging region for the GALFACTS Precursor Observations (white rectangle) . The image shown is the polarized intensity from the Bonn Mid-Latitude Survey (Uyaniker et al The region was chosen to contain both high structured, diffuse filamentary emission and a strong, polarized point source.

• L-Band Wide Pilot Study
• ALFA Precursor Observations
  

Project Timeline

• Complete ALFA Precursor Observations - January 2005
• GALFACTS Project Proposal Submitted - June 1, 2005
• Initial ALFA image of Pilot Region - September 2005
• GALFACTS Proposal Approved by NAIC - September 2006
• Commensal Test Observations with A2174 - October/November 2006
• GALFACTS Consortium Planning Meeting - January 2007
• GALFACTS Observations Begin - Fall 2008
• This schedule is set by the development time for the new
  pulsar/continuum spectrometer which will provide a 300 MHz bandwidth
  for continuum spectro-polarimetry.
• GALFACTS Observations Completed - 2012

Internal section for GALFACTS project members only. Username and password needed to access.

Please send comments and questions to russ [at] ras [dot] ucalgary [dot] ca (Russ Taylor)