LOFAR Ionospheric Workshop in Poland

© Maaijke Mevius, Emanuela Orru, Richard Fallows

The ionosphere has always been known to pose a particular challenge when calibrating LOFAR data, particularly in the low band below 80MHz. Recently Poland joined LOFAR with 3 stations, at the same time offering a range of ionospheric expertise and instrumentation. This prompted a fresh effort to bring together radio astronomers and ionospheric physicists, which was formally started with the first LOFAR Ionospheric Workshop, held in Warsaw on the 2nd and 3rd June 2016.

Starting with a series of talks explaining in basic terms what everybody does to overcome the language barrier, presentations also detailed the wealth of ionospheric information which could be brought to bear on the calibration issue, from high-resolution GPS measurements of the Total Electron Content to radar soundings using ionosondes, riometers measuring absorption due to the lower ionosphere and in-situ satellite information.

Further presentations detailed the progress already made by the radio astronomers in calibrating their data, the particular challenges they are facing and the kinds of data products which could be offered to help with studies of the ionosphere. This lead to very useful discussions and the launch of several working groups, with a second workshop planned in Leiden next spring.

All-in-all, a very productive meeting which will hopefully progress as a long and fruitful collaboration between the two communities!