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Science Drivers�for the�Square Kilometre Array

Steve Torchinsky�USN/GEPI

SKADS Project Scientist

www.skads-eu.org

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SKA Key Science

?

Tests of gravity

Epoch of Reionisation

Cosmic Magnetism

Cradle of Life

Large Scale Structure

Transient Universe

The Unknown

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SKA Science Book

Chris Carilli & Steve Rawlings,

New Astronomy Reviews, Vol.48, Elsevier, Dec. 2004

​

http://www.skads-eu.org/p/SKA_SciBook.php

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Strong Field Tests of Gravity

Binary orbit permits determination of masses

Relativistic effects permit (re) determination of masses.

ALL MUST AGREE

http://www.jb.man.ac.uk/~pulsar/

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Strong Field Tests of Gravity

  • Large surveys will find exotic binarys
    • ~20 000 pulsars in the galaxy
    • Nearly edge-on Pulsar – Black-hole binary (at least one)
      • Probe eg. Frame dragging, cosmic censorship, no hair theorem
  • Pulsar timing array
    • Gravitational wave background

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Probing the Dark Ages

  • When did the first luminous objects form?
  • How did they form and over what period of time?

​

  • SKA will detect the Epoch of Reionisation and map the evolution history of the first luminous objects

Di Matteo et al

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Cosmic Magnetism

Faraday rotation of > 107 polarised background sources

Origin of magnetic fields

    • Dynamo?
    • Primordial?

​

NGC 891 (Krause)

M 51 VLA+Eff 6cm

(Fletcher & Beck)

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Large Scale Structure

Billions of galaxies!

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Baryonic Acoustic Oscillations

  • Improve signal confidence by measuring wiggles in separate redshift bins
  • A catalog of a billion galaxies
  • Position and redshift measured simultaneously
  • There are fluctuations at all scales but there is a preferred scale of around 1 deg.

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Complementarity with Planck

1%

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Cradle of Life

  • Protoplanetary disks resolved to Earth-like orbits
  • Organic molecules
    • methanol (834 MHz)
    • acetaldehyde (1.1 GHz)
    • acetamide (9.2 GHz)
    • cyclopropenone (9.3 GHz)
    • propenal (26 GHz)
  • Extrasolar planets

G. Bryden / NASA

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Indicators of �Extra Terrestrial Intelligence

Project

Phoenix

Allen

Telescope

Array

SKA

Jill Tarter

SETI at leakage levels from nearby stars

eg:

  • planetary radar
  • Interplanetary communication
  • Interstellar communication

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Transients

Start recording…

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Transient signal

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Transients

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Transient signal

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Transients

  • Pulsar is a special case of transient phenomena (periodic)
  • Giant pulses
  • Supernova
  • Bursters
  • ETI

​

requires:

  • fast time constant
  • memory buffer for post analysis
  • wide instantaneous, fully-sampled FoV

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Transient signal

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The Unknown

  • New discoveries always result from observations in new parameter space
    • sensitivity
    • spatial resolution
    • spectral resolution
    • polarisation
    • time domain
    • observing speed (multibeaming)
  • eg. CMB, pulsars, extra solar planets,…

SKA improves all of these

SKA is designed for the Key Projects but with an overriding design philosophy of flexibility to maximise the likelihood of new discoveries

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SKA Science Book

Chris Carilli & Steve Rawlings,

New Astronomy Reviews, Vol.48, Elsevier, Dec. 2004

​

http://www.skads-eu.org/p/SKA_SciBook.php

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Cosmology, Galaxy Formation

and Astroparticle Physics on

the Pathway to the SKA

Hans-Rainer Klöckner, Steve Rawlings,

Matt Jarvis, Angela Taylor (eds.)

Cosmology, Galaxy Formation and Astroparticle Physics on the Pathway to the SKA

Available online:

www.skads-eu.org (click “astronomy” and “LOSKA2006”)

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Simulations for the SKA

image by D. Obreschkow

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Simulations for the SKA

Effort in SKADS:

  • Catalog of continuum sources (250 Million sources)
  • Epoch of Reionisation (tomography from z≈15 to z≈6)
  • The Cosmic Web
  • Pulsars

​

  • See SKADS Simulated Skies website
    • www.skads-eu.org/p/s-cubed.php
  • See Proceedings of the Pushchino Meeting
    • www.skads-eu.org/p/memos.php
    • And others listed there, available on astro-ph

​

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SKADS Simulated Skies

s-cubed.physics.ox.ac.uk

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SKADS Simulated Skies

www.skads-eu.org/p/s-cubed.php

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SKADS Publications (1/4)

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SKADS Publications (2/4)

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SKADS Publications (3/4)

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SKADS Publications (4/4)

www.skads-eu.org/p/memos.php

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SKADS Science and Technology

The Universe

Our understanding of the Universe

Sky Simulation (DS2T1)

Convolution with the telescope (DS2T2)

Network simulator (DS3T3)

Technology development �(DS4)

Technology demonstrators�(DS5 & DS6)

observations

brain power

Catalogs, images, EM fields

voltages

measurements�and�simulated performance

Request spec change�BENCHMARK

Backend data

Data imaging�(DS2T2)

Simulated telescope image

Data analysis (DS2)

science goals achievable?

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SKADS Science and Technology

The Universe

Our understanding of the Universe

Sky Simulation (DS2T1)

Convolution with the telescope (DS2T2)

Network simulator (DS3T3)

Technology development �(DS4)

Technology demonstrators�(DS5 & DS6)

observations

brain power

voltages

measurements�and�simulated performance

Backend data

Data imaging�(DS2T2)

Simulated telescope image

Request spec change�BENCHMARK

Catalogs, images, EM fields

Data analysis (DS2)

science goals achievable?

Consider trade-offs

NO: not technologically feasible

NO: too expensive

YES: We can do better than that !

SKADS�Design & Costing

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SKA Design and Costing

  • SKADS final deliverable “Designed and Costed SKA”
  • First memo: detailed design
    • www.skads-eu.org/p/memos.php
    • SKA Memo #93
    • ~1.5BEuro
  • Development of costing tool: SKACost
    • Designed and costed components and subsystems
    • Data base for costing different SKA implementations
    • SKADS in collaboration with International SKA Program Office

​

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Training the next generation

  • 1st MCCT School�Medicina 23-29 Sept 2007
  • Wide field imaging and calibration�Groningen 2-7 March
  • Synergies with the SKA�Bonn 14-18 April 2008
  • Deep Field Imaging with SKA�Cambridge 25-29 Aug
  • Radioastronomy and the New Instruments�Siguenza 27 Aug – 4 Sept
  • Multifield and multibeam science with SKA�Oxford 15-27 March 2009
  • Increasing the evolution rate in radio astronomy�Paris 24-28 August 2009
  • Towards 3rd generation calibration�Nançay 27 Sept – 10 Oct

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EMBRACE

  • Electronic MultiBeam Radio Astronomy ConcEpt
  • Aperture-Plane phased-array
  • 500MHz – 1500MHz
  • Linear polarisation
  • 160m2 at Westerbork
  • 90m2 at Nançay

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EMBRACE at Nançay

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EMBRACE at Nançay

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EMBRACE at Nançay

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Nançay Beamformer Chip

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EMBRACE observations of the Sun

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SKA Key Science

?

Tests of gravity

Epoch of Reionisation

Cosmic Magnetism

Cradle of Life

Large Scale Structure

Transient Universe

The Unknown

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Contact

Steve Torchinsky

SKADS Project Scientist

USN/GEPI, Observatoire de Paris

Phone: +33 1 45 07 75 02

Email: Steve.Torchinsky@obspm.fr

Web: http://www.skads-eu.org

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