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For a point source, it is more natural to express the signal, and thus the
sensitivity, in unit of flux. The flux (
) of a point source is
linked to its brightness temperature
through
 |
(5) |
where
is the Boltzman constant, and
is the effective area
of the antenna (eq. 3-113 in Kraus , 1982), and
the conversion
factor for a typical interferometer antenna. The effective area depends on
the observing wavelength when the surface rms accuracy becomes a
significant fraction of the wavelength. For NOEMA, the effective area is
close to 1 at 3mm but significantly lower than 1 at 1mm.
Using the same conversion factor for the sensitivity, we yield
 |
(6) |
Gildas manager
2023-06-01