The Square Kilometre Array Department of Astronomy and Atmospheric Sciences, Kyungpook National University 김경묵, 박진태, 방태양, 신지혜, 조창현, 정수진, 현화수 Survey Science Group 3rd Workshop 1
Outline Survey Science Group 3rd Workshop 2 Introduction What is the SKA? The SKA Timeline Phase Development The SKA Telescopes Aperture Array The Properties of the SKA Sky coverage & Resolution Sensitivity & Depth Data access The Science Extreme tests of general relativity How do Galaxies Evolve? What is Dark Energy? Around the re-ionization epoch! Understanding Cosmic Magnetism Cradle of Life : Searching for life and planets
Introduction : What is the SKA? The Square Kilometre Array The largest, most sensitive radio telescope with an aim to provide fundamental answers to questions about the origin and evolution of the universe. Telescopes will be co-located in Africa and in Australia. South Africa(Karoo desert) : the high and mid frequencies. Australia(Murchison region) : the low frequency and survey instrument. Survey Science Group 3rd Workshop 3 South Africa Australia (Image from the SKA official webpage)
The SKA Telescopes Survey Science Group 3rd Workshop 4 High FrequencyMid FrequencyLow Frequency Information from “ (Image from the SKA official webpage)
Aperture Array (AA) Survey Science Group 3rd Workshop 5 AA is key feature of the SKA. AA is a large number of small, fixed antenna elements coupled to appropriate receiver systems. Mid Frequency AA Low Frequency AA Advantages of AA Unblocked aperture with full view of the entire sky! Ultimate flexibility and reliability - no moving parts! Beams are formed and controlled electronically! Multiple beams (or FOV) permits concurrent, independent (or associated) observations → huge FOV! ( (Image from the SKA official webpage)
The SKA Timeline Survey Science Group 3rd Workshop 6 (Image from the SKA official webpage)
Phased Development Survey Science Group 3rd Workshop 7 SKA Phase 1 (2018~) South AfricaAustralia ( HIGH
Phased Development Survey Science Group 3rd Workshop 8 SKA Phase 2 (mid 2020s) South AfricaAustralia ( HIGH
The Telescope Scale comparison Survey Science Group 3rd Workshop 9 (Image from the SKA official webpage)
The Properties of Instruments Survey Science Group 3rd Workshop 10
Sky coverage The SKA Phase 1 shall be able to provide access to at least 2π sr of the sky. Resolution Angular resolution is about to < 0.1 arcsecond at 1.4 GHz ~3000 km base line Sky coverage & Resolution Survey Science Group 3rd Workshop 11
Sensitivity & Depth Survey Science Group 3rd Workshop 12 The typical survey’s depth is z ∼ 0.2 with massive galaxies detected out to z ∼ 0.7. SKA will have sufficient sensitivity to detect all QSOs and starforming galaxies to z~20. ~ 50 times more sensitive than the currently most powerful interferometer. The structure of the universe would be sampled over scales of 10’s of Mpc to several Gpc. (Taylor, A.R. et al. 1999) ( erview) Depth Sensitivity
Data access Survey Science Group 3rd Workshop 13 Optical fibres will be essential to transport the huge amount of data to the central SKA processor. (Image from The Aperture Arrays for the SKA: the SKADS White Paper )
Data access Survey Science Group 3rd Workshop 14 Optical fibres will be essential to transport the huge amount of data to the central SKA processor. (Image from The Aperture Arrays for the SKA: the SKADS White Paper )
The Science Survey Science Group 3rd Workshop 15
The Key Projects Survey Science Group 3rd Workshop 16 Extreme tests of general relativity How do Galaxies Evolve? What is Dark Energy? Around the re-ionization epoch! Understanding Cosmic Magnetism Cradle of Life : Searching for life and planets (Image from the SKA official webpage)
Extreme tests of general relativity Survey Science Group 3rd Workshop 17 Was Einstein right or will general relativity eventually fail? What are the properties of black holes? Are there still ripples in space-time from the early Universe? The SKA will test general relativity extremely with pulsars and black holes. Pulsars orbiting black holes will test Einstein’s description of these enigmatic objects to the extreme. The best test so far of Einstein’s theory in strong gravitational fields is provided by the only known double pulsar system, where two pulsars orbit each other in 145 min. Pulsars discovered and monitored with the SKA will act like a cosmic gravitational wave detector, allowing the study of ripples in the fabric of space-time that propagate at ultra- low frequencies. (Image from the SKA Brochure)
How do Galaxies Evolve? Survey Science Group 3rd Workshop 18 Radio telescopes’ ability to “see” regions beyond the optical view of a galaxy, have brought significant insights into how galaxies form and develop. The SKA’s sensitivity and resolution will be able to track young, newly forming galaxies at cosmological distances, and, through mapping the distribution of H. (Image from the SKA official webpage)
What is Dark Energy? Survey Science Group 3rd Workshop 19 Mysterious force appears to counteract and even surpass the mutual gravitational attraction causing acceleration in the expansion. cosmology and dark energy is to observe the gravitational effects of galaxies and clusters of galaxies on the path of radio waves through the Universe. (Image from the SKA official webpage)
Around the re-ionization epoch! Survey Science Group 3rd Workshop 20 Take snapshots of the 21 cm emission at many different epochs, before, during and after reionisation, yielding detailed information about the formation of the first structures in the universe. But! these objects are exceptionally faint and much of their light is absorbed by intervening matter as it travels toward us. SKA can resolve this problem thanks to it’s very high sensitivity! Through multifrequency observations, we can therefore construct fully three- dimensional maps of neutral gas in the universe. Such maps are crucial for studying the time dependence of reionisation.
Around the re-ionization epoch! Survey Science Group 3rd Workshop 21 (Furlanetto et al. 2003)
Understanding Cosmic Magnetism Survey Science Group 3rd Workshop 22 What is the shape and strength of the magnetic field in our Milky Way? How does this compare to the magnetism in other galaxies? What role has this had on the formation of individual stars and galaxies? Where and how do the magnetic fields originate? (Image from Philipp P. Kronberg, Physics Today, , p.30) (Image from the SKA official webpage)
Cradle of Life : Searching for life and planets Survey Science Group 3rd Workshop 23 The SKA will detect the thermal emission from dust in the habitable zone. In particular, the SKA will show where dust evolves from micron-sized insterstellar particles to centimetre-sized and larger “pebbles”. Astrobiologists will use the SKA to search for amino acids, the building blocks of life, by identifying their spectral signatures at specific frequencies. The SKA will be able to detect extremely weak extraterrestrial radio signals if they were to exist. (Image from the SKA official webpage)
Reference Survey Science Group 3rd Workshop 24 Papers Furlanetto, S. R., & Loeb, A. 2003, AJ, 588, 18 Nadin, Maureen et al. 2011, JRASC, 105, 15 Kronberg, P. P., Physics Today, , p.30 Taylor, A.R. 1999, in M.P. van Haarlam (ed.), Perspectives on Radio Astronomy : Science with Large Antenna Arrays, ASTRON, p. 1 The Aperture Arrays for the SKA: the SKADS White Paper (2010.4) Webpages The SKA official Webpage ( The SKA Technology subgroup ( Workshop webpage The Square Kilometre Array: a large Scale ESFRI Infrastructure, From the Cosmos to the Cities of the future (
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