Imaging on a sphere with interferometers: The spherical wave harmonic transform

Journal article, 2015

I present an exact and explicit solution to the scalar (Stokes flux intensity) radio interferometer imaging equation on a spherical surface which is valid also for non-coplanar interferometer configurations. This imaging equation is comparable to ω-term imaging algorithms, but by using a spherical rather than a Cartesian formulation this term has no special significance. The solution presented also allows direct identification of the scalar (spin 0 weighted) spherical harmonics on the sky. The method should be of interest for future multispacecraft interferometers, wide-field imaging with non-coplanar arrays, and cosmic microwave background spherical harmonic measurements using interferometers.