Polarimetric imaging of large fields in radio astronomy

Abstract

We introduce and compare schemes to form wide-field polarimetric images from radio-interferometric mosaic and single-dish observations. We concentrate on two schemes based on maximum entropy principles. One scheme deconvolves the four Stokes parameters jointly (simultaneously), the other deconvolves each Stokes parameter separately. We find that the two schemes do not produce substantially different results. Issues of wide-field polarimetric purity are also considered.