Back to Search
Start Over
Millimetre and submillimetre atmospheric performance at Dome C combining radiosoundings and<scp>atm</scp>synthetic spectra
- Source :
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 425:222-230
- Publication Year :
- 2012
- Publisher :
- Oxford University Press (OUP), 2012.
-
Abstract
- The reliability of astronomical observations at millimeter and sub-millimeter wavelengths closely depends on a low vertical content of water vapor as well as on high atmospheric emission stability. Although Concordia station at Dome C (Antarctica) enjoys good observing conditions in this atmospheric spectral windows, as shown by preliminary site-testing campaigns at different bands and in, not always, time overlapped periods, a dedicated instrument able to continuously determine atmospheric performance for a wide spectral range is not yet planned. In the absence of such measurements, in this paper we suggest a semi-empirical approach to perform an analysis of atmospheric transmission and emission at Dome C to compare the performance for 7 photometric bands ranging from 100 GHz to 2 THz. Radiosoundings data provided by the Routine Meteorological Observations (RMO) Research Project at Concordia station are corrected by temperature and humidity errors and dry biases and then employed to feed ATM (Atmospheric Transmission at Microwaves) code to generate synthetic spectra in the wide spectral range from 100 GHz to 2 THz. To quantify the atmospheric contribution in millimeter and sub-millimeter observations we are considering several photometric bands in which atmospheric quantities are integrated. The observational capabilities of this site at all the selected spectral bands are analyzed considering monthly averaged transmissions joined to the corresponding fluctuations. Transmission and pwv statistics at Dome C derived by our semi-empirical approach are consistent with previous works. It is evident the decreasing of the performance at high frequencies. We propose to introduce a new parameter to compare the quality of a site at different spectral bands, in terms of high transmission and emission stability, the Site Photometric Quality Factor.
- Subjects :
- Terahertz radiation
Astrophysics::Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Spectral bands
Spectral line
Wavelength
Transmission (telecommunications)
Space and Planetary Science
Environmental science
Millimeter
Physics::Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics
Microwave
Water vapor
Remote sensing
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 00358711
- Volume :
- 425
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi...........709cd2012f6619a5bd68207643bac644