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Galactic Science with the SKA & Its Pathfinders |
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The Square Kilometre
Array is a multi-national project to build the world’s largest radio
interferometer with 10,000 times the survey speed of the best current-day
telescopes. The SKA and its pathfinder facilities will revolutionise
many areas of astrophysics from Cosmology to Strong field tests of Gravity and
Particle Physics. However, despite the fantastic potential of the SKA and its
pathfinders for Galactic science, one of the smallest communities currently
engaged with the SKA project is the Galactic astronomy community. Our aims were
to bring together members of the SKA and pathfinder facilities with the
Galactic astronomy community so that we could increase awareness of the
capabilities of the SKA, build up the Galactic SKA community and develop
well-defined science cases for the SKA and pathfinder telescopes. During the workshop we discussed a wide
range of science in context with the capabilities of the SKA and pathfinder
telescopes. There were many stimulating and interesting discussions and
presentations on many key areas in Galactic science (many of these
presentations are available on the Lorentz Center meeting homepage). From
these discussions it was clear that the SKA has the potential to make a
tremendous impact on many key areas in the physics of the ISM, the early lives
of stellar clusters, and stellar evolution.
In Galactic astronomy the real step changes come in the transformative
ability of the SKA in wide-area, sensitive high angular resolution
spectroscopy, and in the unparalleled astrometric
measurements in line and continuum. The SKA makes it possible to: i)
study the detailed flow of
material through the atomic and ionised ISM ii)
pinpoint the proper motion and
parallax of low-mass YSOs in nearby clusters and spiral arms, and massive star
forming regions throughout the Milky Way. iii)
open up the field of wide-area
formaldehyde absorption mapping to create a high dynamic range map of the
molecular gas density in the Milky Way iv)
bring the study of stellar
variability into the radio era. We were very pleased with the outcomes of the workshop. Much of
the science that was discussed and identified during the workshop was presented
at the SKA 2014 Science meeting, Advancing
Astrophysics with the Square Kilometre Array, held in Giardini
Naxos 8-13 June 2014. This work will also be published in the new SKA Science
Book. The science requirements for two new observational projects (anomalous
formaldehyde absorption and VLBI maser astrometry) were outlined during the
workshop and subsequently submitted to the SKA Project Office. Finally, the focus for the Galactic SKA community provided by
the workshop has led to the formation of a Milky Way SKA Science Focus Group
within the SKA Project. We are particularly encouraged by this outcome as it
provides a forum for the Galactic astronomy community to directly engage with
the SKA project, ensuring the future development of Galactic science with the
SKA.
Huib Jan van Langevelde (Leiden, Netherlands) [Back] |
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