1. LOFAR UK Rob Fender

2. LOFAR-UK [est. 2004] www.lofar-uk.org Management committee formed based on internal MoU P.I. Fender (Southampton) Co-P.I. Rawlings (Oxford) Current membership (22 institutions): Southampton, Oxford, Cambridge, Portsmouth, RAL, Manchester, Hertfordshire, Edinburgh, Durham, LJMU, Glasgow, UCL, Cardiff, The Open University, ATC, Aberystwyth, Sussex, Kent, QMUL, Sheffield, Leicester Potential additional members: Nottingham, Warwick  More than 75% of all UK astronomers are effectively signed up – LOFAR(-UK) has dramatically widened the UK radio community – need to keep this alive for SKA

3. Chilbolton: 600 km baseline (RAL land, to be fibred) Lords Bridge: 450 km baseline (U. Camb land, e-MERLIN fibre) Jodrell: 650 km baseline (U. Man land, e-MERLIN fibre) Edinburgh: 850 km baseline LOFAR:UK Possible station sites and relation to LOFAR

5. NL + 3xDE NL + 3xDE + 3xUK NL + 3xDE + 1xUK NL + 3xDE + 2xUK

6. Chilbolton chosen as first site STFC-owned site First LOFAR-UK station to be installed here 2009 Q2/3 Also has high-quality 25m dish which could be added to e-MERLIN

7. UK science interests (a subset of…) Detection of the EoR signal via detection of HI absorption against luminous distant AGN Star formation and black hole accretion across cosmological time, gravitational lensing Identify northern component of the Pulsar Timing Array Identification and study of extragalactic radio bursts, providing probes of the IGM and possible counterparts to gravitational wave sources Detection of UHE neutrinos (LHC energies x 50!) Sun-Earth interactions: CME creation and propagation Origin and distribution of astrophysical magnetic fields

8. Funding Currently ~1.4 MEuro ‘in the bank’ In addition six ‘LOFAR’ permanent positions funded in South East, and many PDRAs requested (e.g. joint Oxford/RAL position to work on LOFAR ionospheric calibration)  One UK station (Chilbolton) funded Request to STFC for further ~5.5 MEuro Final presentation to funding panel last Friday Evaluation by end November  Up to 3 additional UK stations, 4 FTEs in long- baseline calibration / data products and transport

9. LOFAR as part of a coordinated UK radio strategy towards SKA LOFAR The major pathfinder for SKA-low / Broadens community Very Soon PrepSKA Development of SKA-mid aperture arrays ~5 years e-MERLIN Science with upgraded dishes Now 120 MHz 15 GHz