Towards radio astronomical imaging using an arbitrary basis
This addresses the computational bottleneck in radio astronomy for telescopes like the SKA, offering a potential step towards real-time imaging, though it appears incremental as it builds on existing imaging methods.
The paper tackles the problem of processing large data from new radio telescopes like the SKA by proposing a new approach to wide-field imaging that generalizes image reconstruction from inverse Fourier transforms to arbitrary transformations, potentially enabling sky image generation in O(PQ) time for real-time applications.
The new generation of radio telescopes, such as the Square Kilometer Array (SKA), requires dramatic advances in computer hardware and software, in order to process the large amounts of produced data efficiently. In this document, we explore a new approach to wide-field imaging. By generalizing the image reconstruction, which is performed by an inverse Fourier transform, to arbitrary transformations, we gain enormous new possibilities. In particular, we outline an approach that might allow to obtain a sky image of size P times Q in (optimal) O(PQ) time. This could be a step in the direction of real-time, wide-field sky imaging for future telescopes.