We present a framework for identifying and flagging malfunctioning antennas in large radio interferometers. Using data from 105 antennas in the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) as a case study, we outline two distinct categories of metrics designed to detect outliers along known failure modes of the array: cross-correlation metrics, based on all antenna pairs, and auto-correlation metrics, based solely on individual antennas. We define and motivate the statistical framework for all metrics used, and present tailored visualizations that aid us in clearly identifying new and existing systematics. Finally, we provide a detailed algorithm for implementing these metrics as flagging tools on real data sets
Reference:
Automated Detection of Antenna Malfunctions in Large-N Interferometers: A Case Study with the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array, Dara Storer, Joshua S. Dillon, Daniel C. Jacobs, Miguel F. Morales, Bryna J. Hazelton, Aaron Ewall-Wice, Zara Abdurashidova, James E. Aguirre, Paul Alexander, Zaki S. Ali, Yanga Balfour, Adam P. Beardsley, Gianni Bernardi, Tashalee S. Billings, Judd D. Bowman, Richard F. Bradley, Philip Bull, Jacob Burba, Steven Carey, Chris L. Carilli, Carina Cheng, David R. DeBoer, Eloy de Lera Acedo, Matt Dexter, Scott Dynes, John Ely, Nicolas Fagnoni, Randall Fritz, Steven R. Furlanetto, Kingsley Gale-Sides, Brian Glendenning, Deepthi Gorthi, Bradley Greig, Jasper Grobbelaar, Ziyaad Halday, Jacqueline N. Hewitt, Jack Hickish, Tian Huang, Alec Josaitis, Austin Julius, MacCalvin Kariseb, Nicholas S. Kern, Joshua Kerrigan, Piyanat Kittiwisit, Saul A. Kohn, Matthew Kolopanis, Adam Lanman, Paul La Plante, Adrian Liu, Anita Loots, David MacMahon, Lourence Malan, Cresshim Malgas, Zachary E. Martinot, Andrei Mesinger, Mathakane Molewa, Tshegofalang Mosiane, Steven G. Murray, Abraham R. Neben, Bojan Nikolic, Chuneeta Devi Nunhokee, Aaron R. Parsons, Robert Pascua, Nipanjana Patra, Samantha Pieterse, Jonathan C. Pober, Nima Razavi-Ghods, Daniel Riley, James Robnett, Kathryn Rosie, Mario G. Santos, Peter Sims, Saurabh Singh, Craig Smith, Jianrong Tan, Nithyanandan Thyagarajan, Peter K. G. Williams, Haoxuan Zheng, arXiv:2109.12733