Detecting Transients with CHARTS: System Overview and Antenna Design

Detecting Transients with CHARTS: System Overview and Antenna Design

The discovery of Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) offers a new view of the dynamic universe, yet their origins remain elusive, requiring specialized instrumentation with high sensitivity and wide-field monitoring capabilities.
This talk introduces the Canadian Chilean Array for Radio Transient Studies (CHARTS), a dedicated array designed for this purpose.

I will introduce CHARTS’ system architecture and discuss what makes it unique among current radio arrays, with a focus on the engineering challenges of the project, specifically the optimization of the antenna elements.
I will demonstrate how the custom antenna design meets critical requirements for bandwidth, beam shape, and sensitivity to maximize transient detection efficiency.

Sebastián López
Seminar Coordinator
DAS/UChile  – slopez@das.uchile.cl