Advanced Networking for Radio Astronomy over GÉANT2

Radio astronomers are some of the most demanding users of the GÉANT2 network. Their eVLBI (Very Long Baseline Interferometry) technique uses national research networks and GÉANT2 to connect telescopes across Europe and create some of the most detailed images of the distant universe ever seen.

This demonstration will show, in real time, pseudo eVLBI data being transferred from radio-telescope sites in the UK, Italy and Poland to Jive (Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe), the central eVLBI processing site at Dwingeloo in the Netherlands. Streams of data will be sent from each site using the UDP protocol and the transfers monitored in terms of bandwidth, packet loss and packet re-ordering. A view of the data correlators at JIVE will show fringes (the first stage of creating an image) being built in real-time.

It should be pointed out that the actual tests on view at the GÉANT2 launch will constitute a valuable part of the research programme for eVLBI networking. The demonstration will show how the high-performance capabilities of GÉANT2 are essential for advanced research techniques such as eVLBI and how, through the close collaboration of the two communities, methods have developed which allow innovative new science to be performed.