76-m Lovell TelescopeJodrell Bank, UK

Even big telescopes see no moredetail than the naked eye

High bandwidth data transfer- the future of European radio astronomy

S. GarringtonJodrell Bank Observatory U.Manchester/e-MERLIN UK

on behalf of the European VLBI Network (EVN)

• New astronomical discoveries demand greater resolution and sensitivity

• Telescope networks provide resolution

… but sensitivity limited by tape recording

• At faintest levels, radio sky teems with galaxies

• Radio emission comes from birth and death of stars, often hidden by dust from optical telescopes

… but network provides50 x more detail than Hubble Space Telescope

2

Demonstrations using Géant

• Rapid move to disk buffering (MIT, JIVE, Metsahovi) at 0.5, 1 Gb/s• High-speed transfer is next• European demonstrations using GEANT core network

– specialised transfer s/w using UDP– iGrid2002: Tape/Disk 500 Mb/s transfer Man-Ams 24/09/02– First disk-disk test Jodrell Bank(UK)-Westerbork(NL) 24/10/02 data transferred via SJ4/Geant/SURFnet correlated at JIVE within hours

S Parsley (JIVE),R Hughes-Jones,R Spencer, P Burgess (Manchester)

3

Dante/EVN Proof Of Concept

• Network requirements– 5 or 6 telescopes connected

at 1-2 Gb/s each

– Real time transfer to correlator at Dwingeloo NL

– Continuous transfer for 24hr observations

• Agreed in principle by Dante/NRENs

• Local loops being pursued now in UK, DE, NL, SWE, IT, PL

• Expect science results by Nov 2004

Future usage (2005)• Routine operation for up to

16 telescopes across Europe & China at 1 Gb/s for ~50 days/yr

• Rapid response to transient events (eg GRBs, SNe)

• Link to UK e-MERLIN network and global VLBI network

With a new correlator (>2007)

40 - 80 Gb/s per telescope

4

Future Network

• Strong scientific and technical motivation for e-VLBI using research networks– flexibility & immediate response

– reliability & faster development

– greater sensitivity via bandwidth

• Plausible network connections to all EVN telescopes via Géant

local loops going in now• Real-time demo by 2004

1 Gb/s from 5 telescopes• Processed observations ~ TB/day

– remote access/processing on the GRID: Virtual Observatory

GEANT + NRENs can enable ‘always-on’ radio telescopeacross Europe

High bandwidth connection will allow us to exploit true potential of distributednetwork of European radio telescopes (and radio astronomers!)