Sapce based low frequency interferometric radioastronomy: the path towards the imaging of the inner heliosphere.

Abstract:

Low frequency radioastronomy observatories for the heliosphere have been using similar instrumentation for decades. The Cassini, STEREO, and the future Solar Orbiter mission are embarking goniopolarmetric radio receiver connected to 3 electric wire antennas. Such instrument provides the spectral matrix (or part of it) from which the wave parameters can be derived. They require a point source assumption (plane wave) to derive the direction of arrival of the wave, the polarization and the flux density. In case of a spatially extended source (disk shaped, with a given radial profile), the source centroid direction and the apparent source size can also be derived. This type of instrumentation cannot provide much more parameters, as there is a maximum of to 9 independent measurements for each time-frequency step (i.e. an instantaneous set of measurements). Radio maps can be produced a posteriori combining consecutive data at the cost of averaging out small scale temporal variations. Furthermore, these inversion do not allow solving for several sources, or for complex source geometry.

We present a concept of radioastronomy instrumentation using a swarm of small satellites (possibly cubesats) with sensitive radio receivers measuring the wave front and phase of the radio waves on each spacecraft. This instrument will also provide 3-dimensional interferometric measurement from which real imaging capabilities will arise, as it is now occurring on ground at frequencies above 15 MHz, with the LOFAR interferometer in Europe, or the LWA in teh USA. The proposed concept will be very complementary to these instruments, as they will be orepating from a few kHz to a few 10 Mhz from space, and thus not affected by the ionospheric cutoff at 10 MHz.

Such resolved imaging capabilities of the inner heliosphere would be a real step forward to better understand the radio emissions mechanisms and the energetic at the orgin of the radio sources, as well as the propagation processes. We will present the various existing projects and the roadmap to reach this goal.