ThunderKAT: The MeerKAT Large Survey Project for Image-Plane Radio Transients

Abstract

ThunderKAT is the image-plane transients programme for MeerKAT. The goal as outlined in 2010, and still today, is to find, identify and understand high-energy astrophysical processes via their radio emission (often in concert with observations at other wavelengths). Through a comprehensive and complementary programme of surveying and monitoring Galactic synchrotron transients (across a range of compact accretors and a range of other explosive phenomena) and exploring distinct populations of extragalactic synchrotron transients (microquasars, supernovae and possibly yet unknown transient phenomena) - both from direct surveys and commensal observations - we will revolutionise our understanding of the dynamic and explosive transient radio sky. As well as performing targeted programmes of our own, we have made agreements with the other MeerKAT large survey projects (LSPs) that we will also search their data for transients. This commensal use of the other surveys, which remains one of our key programme goals in 2016, means that the combined MeerKAT LSPs will produce by far the largest GHz-frequency radio transient programme to date.

To be published in "MeerKAT Science: On the Pathway to the SKA". Proceedings of Science. Workshop held 25-27 May, 2016 Stellenbosch, South Africa

Cited by in corpus (23)

• Observation of inverse Compton emission from a long $\gamma$-ray burst
• Key Science Goals for the Next-Generation Event Horizon Telescope
• An extremely powerful long-lived superluminal ejection from the black hole MAXI J1820+070
• The black hole transient MAXI J1348-630: evolution of the compact and transient jets during its 2019/2020 outburst
• Modeling the kinematics of the decelerating jets from the black hole X-ray binary MAXI J1348$-$630
• The INTEGRAL view on Black Hole X-ray Binaries
• MKT J170456.2-482100: the first transient discovered by MeerKAT
• The 2018 outburst of BHXB H1743-322 as seen with MeerKAT
• The hybrid radio/X-ray correlation of the black hole transient MAXI J1348-630
• A comprehensive search for the radio counterpart of GW190814 with the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder
• Radio & X-ray detections of GX 339--4 in quiescence using MeerKAT and Swift
• CHILES VERDES: Radio variability at an unprecedented depth and cadence in the COSMOS field
• An insight into the extragalactic transient and variable microJy radio sky across multiple decades
• The detection of radio emission from known X-ray flaring star EXO 040830-7134.7
• Radio flaring and dual radio loud/quiet behaviour in the new candidate black hole X-ray binary MAXI J1631-472
• A MeerKAT Survey of Nearby Novalike Cataclysmic Variables
• Bow-shocks, nova shells, disc winds and tilted discs: The Nova-Like V341 Ara Has It All
• MeerKAT discovery of radio emission from the Vela X-1 bow shock
• Radio Afterglows from Compact Binary Coalescences: Prospects for Next-Generation Telescopes
• A GMRT 150 MHz Search for Variables and Transients in Stripe 82
• A Machine Learning Approach For Classifying Low-mass X-ray Binaries Based On Their Compact Object Nature
• Infrared interferometry to spatially and spectrally resolve jets in X-ray binaries
• The Near-Ultraviolet eXplorer (NUX): a ground-based wide-field near-UV telescope to search for near-UV transients