Speaker
Description
The future of very low frequency radio astronomy lies on the Moon, where the absence of an ionosphere and terrestrial radio interference enables observations below ~30 MHz. The upcoming LuSEE-Night mission will deploy four monopole antennas on the lunar farside to measure the global signal from the Epoch of Reionization and coherent emission from exoplanets. Before scientific measurements are possible, the instrument must be calibrated in a complex and poorly understood environment. Without a metallic ground plane, the antenna response will be shaped by reflections within the lunar regolith and underlying bedrock, producing frequency-dependent ripples in the signal. Luckily, LuSEE-Night includes a dedicated calibration beacon that emits a well-characterized signal. In this talk, I show how this calibrator can be used not only for instrumental calibration but also to constrain key properties of the regolith, such as density and thickness, using Fresnel reflection coefficients and basic antenna theory. Quantifying these environmental effects is a necessary step before the science can begin.
| Talk category | NOVA Network 3 |
|---|---|
| Second preference | Nova Network 2 |
| PhD relevance | 3rd |
