Basic HTML Version
114
UCT RESEARCH REPORT 2012
T
he LADUMA survey (Looking At the Distant Universe with the MeerKAT Array),
co-led by Dr Sarah Blyth, aims to make the deepest observations of neutral
hydrogen in emission before the SKA comes online. These observations will measure
the evolution of the gas content in galaxies over half the age of the universe in order
to probe galaxy evolution over cosmic time.
The MIGHTEE survey (MeerKAT International GigaHertz Tiered Exploration), co-led by Dr
Kurt van der Heyden, is a deep radio continuum survey, which will investigate the relation
of star formation to the growth of supermassive black holes as well as study galaxy
evolution by detecting galaxy clusters as a function of look-back time in the universe.
The ThunderKAT survey (The Hunt for Dynamic and Explosive Radio Transients with
MeerKAT), co-led by Associate Professor Patrick Woudt and Professor Rob Fender (SKA
visiting professor), will study a wide range of transient phenomena in radio sources,
through pointed observations of, for example, exploding stars and relativistic jets from
compact stellar remnants, as well as blind searches for new kinds of transient sources.
A fourth MeerKAT large survey, MHONGOOSE (MeerKAT HI Observations of Nearby
Galactic Objects: Observing Southern Emitters), led by UCT honorary Professor Erwin
de Blok, will observe neutral hydrogen in nearby galaxies to investigate dark matter,
properties of different galaxies, and the cosmic web.
The MeerKAT construction is ongoing and the full array of 64 radio telescopes is
expected to be operational from 2016 onwards. KAT-7, a seven-dish radio interferometer
built on the MeerKAT site and a precursor to the MeerKAT, is already fully operational
and has started the engineering and scientific commissioning in 2012 of a wide range of
observing modes.
The MeerKAT legacy surveys have been closely involved in the commissioning of the
KAT-7 telescope, both to test newly developed software relevant to the surveys and to
explore niche research areas enabled by KAT-7. Staff, postdoctoral research fellows and
postgraduate students at UCT working on ThunderKAT and MHONGOOSE have made a
number of observations during science commissioning of KAT-7 and first scientific results
are being published in the international astronomical literature.
Science with
KAT-7 And MeerKAT
The South African SKA precursor array, MeerKAT, will be the
most sensitive radio telescope in the southern hemisphere
ahead of the SKA. MeerKAT has committed 70% of its observing
time to ten large legacy-style surveys over the first five years
of operations. Academic staff in the Department of Astronomy
lead four of these large legacy surveys, corresponding to an
investment of approximately one-third of all the time available
on MeerKAT.