Science with the Murchison Widefield Array: Phase I Results and Phase II Opportunities

Abstract

The Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) is an open access telescope dedicated to studying the low frequency (80$-$300 MHz) southern sky. Since beginning operations in mid 2013, the MWA has opened a new observational window in the southern hemisphere enabling many science areas. The driving science objectives of the original design were to observe 21\,cm radiation from the Epoch of Reionisation (EoR), explore the radio time domain, perform Galactic and extragalactic surveys, and monitor solar, heliospheric, and ionospheric phenomena. All together 60$+$ programs recorded 20,000 hours producing 146 papers to date. In 2016 the telescope underwent a major upgrade resulting in alternating compact and extended configurations. Other upgrades, including digital back-ends and a rapid-response triggering system, have been developed since the original array was commissioned. In this paper we review the major results from the prior operation of the MWA, and then discuss the new science paths enabled by the improved capabilities. We group these science opportunities by the four original science themes, but also include ideas for directions outside these categories.

38 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in PASA

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• GaLactic and Extragalactic All-sky Murchison Widefield Array (GLEAM) survey I: A low-frequency extragalactic catalogue
• A periodically active pulsar giving insight into magnetospheric physics
• The contribution of Fermi-2LAC blazars to the diffuse TeV-PeV neutrino flux
• Radio signature of cosmological structure formation shocks
• Discovery of 35 New Supernova Remnants in the Inner Galaxy
• Observations of Fast Radio Bursts at Frequencies down to 400 Megahertz
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• LOFAR/H-ATLAS: The low-frequency radio luminosity - star-formation rate relation
• Extragalactic Peaked-Spectrum Radio Sources at Low Frequencies
• First Season MWA EoR Power Spectrum Results at Redshift 7
• A radio ridge connecting two galaxy clusters in a filament of the cosmic web
• Cluster Magnetic Fields from Galactic Outflows
• A method for high precision reconstruction of air shower Xmax using two-dimensional radio intensity profiles
• Gravitational-radiation losses from the pulsar-white-dwarf binary PSR J1141-6545
• MASH-II: More Planetary Nebulae from the AAO/UKST HαSurvey
• Gas stripping in galaxy groups - the case of the starburst spiral NGC 2276
• Probing Reionization with the 21 cm-Galaxy Cross Power Spectrum
• Particle acceleration in the driven relativistic reconnection
• Low-frequency Faraday rotation measures towards pulsars using LOFAR: probing the 3-D Galactic halo magnetic field
• Relativistic jet feedback II: Relationship to gigahertz peak spectrum and compact steep spectrum radio galaxies
• MITEoR: A Scalable Interferometer for Precision 21 cm Cosmology
• The spectral energy distribution of compact jets powered by internal shocks
• Distributed Radio Interferometric Calibration
• A multi-resolution analysis of the radio-FIR correlation in the Large Magellanic Cloud
• Radio and X-ray observations of the intermittent pulsar J1832+0029
• Characterisation of the ionosphere above the Murchison Radio Observatory using the Murchison Widefield Array
• Low frequency observations of linearly polarized structures in the interstellar medium near the south Galactic pole
• GMRT Low Frequency Observations of Extrasolar Planetary Systems
• Radio haloes in nearby galaxies modelled with 1D cosmic-ray transport using SPINNAKER
• A Model for Emission from Jets in X-ray Binaries: Consequences of a Single Acceleration Episode
• The UTMOST: A hybrid digital signal processor transforms the MOST
• Remnant radio-loud AGN in the Herschel-ATLAS field
• The challenges of low-frequency radio polarimetry: lessons from the Murchison Widefield Array
• Pair Fireball Precursors of Neutron Star Mergers
• The High Time and Frequency Resolution Capabilities of the Murchison Widefield Array
• The effect of non-Gaussianity on error predictions for the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) 21-cm power spectrum
• Spectral Index of the Diffuse Radio Background Between 50 and 100 MHz
• Low Frequency Observations of the Subpulse Drifter PSR J0034-0721 with the Murchison Widefield Array
• The Spectral Energy Distribution of Powerful Starburst Galaxies I: Modelling the Radio Continuum
• Limits on low frequency radio emission from southern exoplanets with the Murchison Widefield Array
• Modelling of the Spectral Energy Distribution of Fornax A: Leptonic and Hadronic Production of High Energy Emission from the Radio Lobes
• 154 MHz detection of faint, polarized flares from UV Ceti
• Sensitivity for 21cm Bispectrum from Epoch of Reionization
• The first Murchison Widefield Array low frequency radio observations of cluster scale non-thermal emission: the case of Abell 3667
• Interplanetary Scintillation studies with the Murchison Wide-field Array II: Properties of sub-arcsecond compact sources at low radio frequencies
• Interplanetary Scintillation with the Murchison Widefield Array I: A sub-arcsecond Survey over 900 square degrees at 79 and 158 MHz
• On the Apparent Nulls and Extreme Variability of PSR J1107-5907
• Properties of a Coronal Shock Wave as A Driver of Early SEP Acceleration
• Serendipitous discovery of a dying Giant Radio Galaxy associated with NGC 1534, using the Murchison Widefield Array
• Spectral Flattening at Low Frequencies in Crab Giant Pulses
• Type III Solar Radio Burst Source Region Splitting Due to a Quasi-Separatrix Layer
• PUMA: The Positional Update and Matching Algorithm
• 4D Data Cubes from Radio-Interferometric Spectroscopic Snapshot Imaging
• Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope monitoring of the black hole X-ray binary, V404 Cygni, during its June 2015 outburst
• A search for circularly polarised emission from young exoplanets
• A High Reliability Survey of Discrete Epoch of Reionization Foreground Sources in the MWA EoR0 Field
• In search of cool flow accretion onto galaxies $-$ where does the disk gas end?
• Gridded and direct Epoch of Reionisation bispectrum estimates using the Murchison Widefield Array
• Low Frequency Carbon Radio Recombination Lines I: Calculations of Departure Coefficients
• A high resolution foreground model for the MWA EoR1 field: model and implications for EoR power spectrum analysis
• An Opportunistic Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (SETI) with the Murchison Widefield Array
• Detection of polarized quasi-periodic microstructure emission in millisecond pulsars
• Unsupervised generation of high dynamic range solar images: A novel algorithm for self-calibration of interferometry data
• Discovery of Carbon Radio Recombination Lines in M82
• NGC 741 - Mergers and AGN feedback on galaxy group scale
• The Magnetic Field of the Solar Corona from Pulsar Observations
• Quantifying weak non-thermal solar radio emission at low radio frequencies
• The low-frequency characteristics of PSR J0437-4715 observed with the Murchison Widefield Array
• A Census of Southern Pulsars at 185 MHz
• The Three Discrete Nulling Timescales of PSR J1717-4054
• Probing pulsar scattering between 120 and 280 MHz with the MWA
• Evidence for chaotic behaviour in pulsar spin-down rates
• Strategies for Finding Prompt Radio Counterparts to Gravitational Wave Transients with the Murchison Widefield Array
• Low Frequency Carbon Radio Recombination Lines II: The Diffuse Interstellar Medium
• LOFAR detections of low-frequency radio recombination lines towards Cassiopeia A
• Delay Spectrum with Phase-Tracking Arrays: Extracting the HI power spectrum from the Epoch of Reionization
• The Discovery of Diffuse Radio Polarization Structures in the NVSS
• A Large Scale, Low Frequency Murchison Widefield Array Survey of Galactic HII regions between 260< l <\340
• Multi-frequency observations of a superbubble in the LMC: The case of LHA 120-N 70
• Hunting for radio emission from the intermittent pulsar J1107-5907 at low frequencies
• The Southern HII Region Discovery Survey (SHRDS): Pilot Survey
• GMRT radio continuum study of Wolf Rayet galaxies I: NGC 4214 and NGC 4449
• Ionospheric Modelling using GPS to Calibrate the MWA. II: Regional ionospheric modelling using GPS and GLONASS to estimate ionospheric gradients
• A First Look for Molecules between 103 and 133 MHz using the Murchison Widefield Array
• Building models for extended radio sources: implications for Epoch of Reionisation science
• Detecting Magnetic Fields in Large-Scale Structure with Radio Polarization

Cited by in corpus (13)

• A new MWA limit on the 21 cm Power Spectrum at Redshifts $\sim$ 13 $-$ 17
• Fanaroff-Riley classification of radio galaxies using group-equivariant convolutional neural networks
• Attention-gating for improved radio galaxy classification
• The GLEAM 4-Jy (G4Jy) Sample: I. Definition and the catalogue
• Quantifying Uncertainty in Deep Learning Approaches to Radio Galaxy Classification
• Determination of Planetary Nebulae angular diameters from radio continuum Spectral Energy Distribution modeling
• Dual Polarization Measurements of MWA Beampatterns at 137 MHz
• Feature Guided Training and Rotational Standardisation for the Morphological Classification of Radio Galaxies
• Statistical Detection of IGM Structures during Cosmic Reionization using Absorption of the Redshifted 21 cm line by HI against Compact Background Radio Sources
• On the nature of radio-wave radiation from particle cascades
• Detection of Cosmic Structures using the Bispectrum Phase. I. Mathematical Foundations
• An Ultra-High Time Resolution Cosmic Ray Detection Mode for the Murchison Widefield Array
• Epoch of Reionization Power Spectrum Limits from Murchison Widefield Array Data Targeted at EoR1 Field