Science With The Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder

Abstract

The future of cm and m-wave astronomy lies with the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), a telescope under development by a consortium of 17 countries that will be 50 times more sensitive than any existing radio facility. Most of the key science for the SKA will be addressed through large-area imaging of the Universe at frequencies from a few hundred MHz to a few GHz. The Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) is a technology demonstrator aimed in the mid-frequency range, and achieves instantaneous wide-area imaging through the development and deployment of phased-array feed systems on parabolic reflectors. The large field-of-view makes ASKAP an unprecedented synoptic telescope that will make substantial advances in SKA key science. ASKAP will be located at the Murchison Radio Observatory in inland Western Australia, one of the most radio-quiet locations on the Earth and one of two sites selected by the international community as a potential location for the SKA. In this paper, we outline an ambitious science program for ASKAP, examining key science such as understanding the evolution, formation and population of galaxies including our own, understanding the magnetic Universe, revealing the transient radio sky and searching for gravitational waves.

Accepted for publication in PASA. 14 pages, 6 figures

References in corpus (7)

• The Boston University-Five College Radio Astronomy Observatory Galactic Ring Survey
• Rotation Measures of Extragalactic Sources Behind the Southern Galactic Plane: New Insights into the Large-Scale Magnetic Field of the Inner Milky Way
• Radio imaging of the Subaru/XMM-Newton Deep Field - I. The 100-microJy catalogue, optical identifications, and the nature of the faint radio source population
• SubmilliJansky Transients in Archival Radio Observations
• Radio Polarimetry of the ELAIS N1 Field: Polarized Compact Sources
• Limit on UHE Neutrino Flux from the Parkes Lunar Radio Cherenkov Experiment
• HI imaging of Galaxy Clusters at z=0.2; a Pilot Survey of Abell 963 and Abell 2192

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Linked evolution of gas and star formation in galaxies over cosmic history
• The sensitivity of the next generation of lunar Cherenkov observations to UHE neutrinos and cosmic rays
• Discovery and timing of the first 8gr8 Cygnus survey pulsars
• The Directional Dependence of Apertures, Limits and Sensitivity of the Lunar Cherenkov Technique to a UHE Neutrino Flux
• Upper Limits on Pulsed Radio Emission from the 6.85 s X-ray Pulsar XTE J0103-728 in the Small Magellanic Cloud
• Cosmic Magnetism with the Square Kilometre Array and its Pathfinders