Jülich LOFAR antenna field
Located in the south of Forschungszentrum Jülich.
LOFAR - Low frequency array
Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) is an international project to build and operate an interferometric array of radio telescopes without moving parts. The electric signals from the distributed LOFAR antenna fields are digitised, transported to a central processor, and software-controlled combined in order to map the sky.
The project is supported by a consortium of research institutes, universities, and industrial parties, led by ASTRON in the Netherlands. 40 antenna fields in the Netherlands, 6 German stations and further European stations have been established.
JSC is a computing and storage centre for the German stations in Effelsberg, Garching, Potsdam, Tautenburg, and Jülich which are organized in the GLOW (German Long Wavelength) consortium. The connection for the data communication traffic of these stations to the central computing system in Groningen is handled also by JSC.
With LOFAR, key science projects can tackle investigations of the epoch of reionisation, transient sources, ultra high energy cosmic rays and cosmic magnetism. Furthermore, LOFAR is an instrument for solar science, space weather and deep extragalactic surveys.
LOFAR is an important scientific and technological pathfinder for the next generation of radio telescopes, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). JSC will participate in the SKA project and contribute with developments in novel computer architectures.
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Last Modified: 31.05.2022