Radio Astronomy in South Africa

Home , Intensity mapping

Kurt van der Heyden University of Cape Town

Fundamental Physics with the SKA May 2017 Astronomical Facilies HartRAO in South Africa

Boyden

SKA

SAAO

SAAO SKA MeerKAT - SKA

SAAO

IRSF HartRAO SALT

KAT-7 SALT The Square Kilometre Array in Africa

SKA Phase III South Africa (core) Ghana Kenya Mauritius Madagascar Zambia Botswana Namibia Mozambique MeerKAT - phase 0 of SKA-mid

• 64 13.5m parabolic dish array • Constructed at SA SKA Site, to be incorporated into SKA1 KAROO Radio Astronomy Reserve

500 km UWC UCT SKA-SA

Remotely operated from HQ in Cape Town MeerKAT Array

VLA D+C+B configuration all at once, with 4 times the FoV and shorter baselines. Results from Pencton (DVA-1)

Estimate of receiver noise temperature: 03 November 2014 HCTF measurements 30 H-Channel: 19.6 K H-Channel: 19.6 K repeat H-Channel: 16.3 K 25 H-Channel: 23.4 K • MeerKAT L-band

) 20 K (

e r

u receiver installed on t a r

e 15 p m e t SKA DVA-1 s e i

o 10 N • Results from Penticton 5 Hot/Cold Test Facility 0 900 1000 1100 1200 1300 1400 1500 1600 1700 Frequency (MHz)

Estimate of receiver noise temperature: 03 November 2014 HCTF measurements 30 V-Channel: 19.6 K V-Channel: 19.6 K repeat V-Channel: 16.3 K 25 • Receiver noise V-Channel: 23.4 K ) 20 K (

e r u t a r

temperature T < 7 K e rx 15 p m e t

s e i

o 10 • Translates to Tsys ≈ 18 K N

0 900 1000 1100 1200 1300 1400 1500 1600 1700 Frequency (MHz) Universies NWU UP, UNISA in South Africa Wits, UJ NWU

U/Zululand UFS UKZN

Rhodes UWC NMMU UCT US MeerKAT and the Large Survey Projects

MEERKAT LARGE SURVEY PROJECTS (70% of all available time in the first 5 years) Radio Pulsar Timing Bailes (AU) 7860 h Testing Einstein's theory of gravity and gravitational radiation - Investigating the physics of enigmatic neutron stars through observations of pulsars LADUMA Blyth, Holwerda, Baker (SA,NL,US) 5000 h An ultra-deep survey of neutral hydrogen gas in the early universe MESMER Heywood (UK) 6500 h Searching for CO at high red-shift (z>7) to investigate the role of molecular hydrogen in the early universe MeerKAT Absorption Line Survey Gupta, Srianand (NL, IN) 4000 h

Survey for H and OH lines in absorption against distant continuum sources; OH line ratios may give clues about changes in the fundamental constants in the early universe). MHONGOOSE de Blok (NL,SA) 6000 h Investigations of different types of galaxies; dark matter and the cosmic web MeerKAT HI Survey of Fornax Serra (NL) 2450 h Galaxy formation and evolution in the cluster environment MeerGAL Thompson, Goedhart (UK,SA) 3300 h Galactic structure and dynamics, distribution of ionised gas, recombination lines, interstellar molecular gas and masers MIGHTEE Jarvis, Taylor (UK,SA) 1950 h Deep continuum observations of the earliest radio galaxies TRAPUM Stappers, Kramer (UK, DE) 3080 h Searching for, and investigating new and exotic pulsars ThunderKAT Woudt, Fender (SA,UK) 3000 h Study of explosive radio transients with MeerKAT; accretion-induced outflow from compact stellar remnants, e.g. relativistic jets and (super)novae

MIGHTEE: Deep “Continuum” Survey M. Jarvis and R. Taylor

MeerKAT

• 20 deg2 • ~1 uJy rms • 5” resolution

SKA cosmology survey precursor:

MeerKLASS: MeerKAT Large Area Synoptic Survey (PI: Mario Santos) } MeerKAT final specifications delivers excellent survey speed (large primary beam, low noise) } Lower resolution makes it a better fit for wide surveys versus deep } Aim: Cosmology (Intensity mapping/continuum) and lots of other stuff 2 } ~4,000 deg down to ~ 5 uJy continuum in L-band (most sensitive radio survey on these scales) – about 4,000 hours } Take advantage of multi-wavelength data for cross-correlation } Strong involvement from the South African community (already with staff members from UWC, UKZN, UNISA, Rhodes and UCT) The SKA cosmology Science Working Group

} Chairs: Mario Santos (UWC, South Africa), Xuelei Chen (NAOC, China) } Aim: to evaluate the SKA design and prepare the SKA cosmology surveys (call planned for 2018) } Focus groups: ◦ Weak Lensing (Michael Brown and Ian Harrison) ◦ Cosmology with radio continuum (Matt Jarvis) ◦ HI intensity mapping (Mario Santos) ◦ HI galaxy survey (Phil Bull) ◦ Synergies (David Bacon & Stefano Camera) ◦ Cosmology with SKA-LOW (Alkistis Pourtsidou & Jonathan Pritchard) } Completely open, so please join if interested! First Light Image - MeerKAT 16

Observational Setup:

! Pointing is a commissioning field 10 degrees from the South Celestial Pole ! 16 antennas, 4096 channel correlator mode. ! Observation on 2016-06-19 from 04:00 to 16:00 UTC ! 7.5 hours on source after calibration overheads Calibration: AR1 Antenna Layout ! Data were flagged over full frequency range (900-1670 MHz) after masking known satellite bands. ! Gain variation per antenna is less than 10% in amplitude and 10 deg in phase over the course of the observation

Imaging:

! Image made using Multi-Frequency Synthesis with entire available band, centre frequency is 1284 MHz ! Image made with uniform weighting has resolution of ~7 arcseconds ! Image rms noise level ~12 uJy UV Coverage ! Image contains >1300 sources to 5 sigma limit. First Light Image - MeerKAT 16

Observational Setup:

• 8 acve LSP revised project plans (submied in 2016) to be fully reviewed by later this month.

• Aim to do early/shared risk science (with 16 or 32 dishes) by the end of 2017.

• Request for Open Time proposals (to use 30% of the telescope me) also by the end of this year. - Anyone will be able to apply for that me, although South African involvement will be encourage. Currently …..

• 8 acve LSP revised project plans (submied in 2016) to be fully reviewed by later this month.

• Aim to do early/shared risk science (with 16 or 32 dishes) by the end of 2017.

• Request for Open Time proposals (to use 30% of the telescope me) also by the end of this year. - Anyone will be able to apply for that me, although we want to encourage South African involvement.

Progress report on commissioning observaons over the past year, by the end of the month. - to include images (e.g., HI of galaxies) beyond the ﬁrst light image released in 2016 Stay tuned…