Ultra-high Energy Particle Astrophysics with ANITA-V California Polytechnic State University Co-I

GROUND CALIBRATION SYSTEMS FOR ANITA-V: THE CALIBRATION STATIONS ORIGINALLY DESIGNED FOR ANITA AND PLANNED FOR USE ON ANITA-V USE COMMERCIALLY AVAILABLE HIGH-VOLTAGE PULSERS TO GENERATE IDENTICAL BROADBAND PLANE-WAVE PULSES FROM THE GROUND. SOME CALIBRATION STATIONS ARE SET UP NEAR THE LAUNCH SITE TO ENABLE RAPID VERIFICATION OF INSTRUMENT PERFORMANCE WHILE OTHER STATIONS ARE ESTABLISHED IN REMOTE LOCATIONS WHERE THE TRIGGER EFFICIENCY AND ANGULAR RESOLUTION CAN BE MEASURED WITHOUT CONTAMINATION FROM MAN-MADE RADIO NOISE. THE GROUND STATION CALIBRATION SYSTEMS WILL BE REFURBISHED BY AN UNDERGRADUATE FUNDED THROUGH THIS GRANT WORKING UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF A PUEO GRADUATE STUDENT. HOWEVER RECENT ANITA DATA SUGGEST THAT THE MEASURED POLARITY AND PHASE CENTERS DEPENDS ON FREQUENCY CONTENT AND POLARIZATION OF THE SIGNAL. THEREFORE AT THE REMOTE SITES AND DURING INTEGRATION AND TESTING WE PLAN TO USE A PROGRAMMABLE PULSER WITH VARYING SIGNAL STRENGTH POLARITY AND FREQUENCY CONTENT IN ADDITION TO THE STANDARD PULSERS. AT CAL POLY WE HAVE MADE A PROTOTYPE OF A PROGRAMMABLE PULSER CONSISTING OF A FPGA (VIRTEX-6) ON AN ML-605 EVALUATION BOARD DRIVING AN AD9129 DIGITAL-TO-ANALOG CONVERTER. THE PROGRAMMABLE PULSER CAN MODEL ARBITRARY WAVEFORMS UP TO 1.4 GHZ ANALOG BANDWIDTH BY TAKING ADVANTAGE OF OF THE LARGE BUFFER DEPTH OF THE VIRTEX-6 AND THE 2.8 GSPS DIGITIZATION RATE OF THE AD9219 CAL POLY UNDERGRADUATES DONALD HERSAM AND ZOE RIESEN HAVE SUCCESSFULLY PROGRAMMED THE PULSER WITH THE ANITA-3 ELECTRONICS IMPULSE RESPONSE WITH AN ANALOG BANDWIDTH UP TO 1.4 GHZ AS WELL AS OTHER BROADBAND PULSES BOTH UNIPOLAR AND SINGLE POLE