No Arabic abstract
In the lead-up to the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project, several next-generation radio telescopes and upgrades are already being built around the world. These include APERTIF (The Netherlands), ASKAP (Australia), eMERLIN (UK), VLA (USA), e-EVN (based in Europe), LOFAR (The Netherlands), Meerkat (South Africa), and the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA). Each of these new instruments has different strengths, and coordination of surveys between them can help maximise the science from each of them. A radio continuum survey is being planned on each of them with the primary science objective of understanding the formation and evolution of galaxies over cosmic time, and the cosmological parameters and large-scale structures which drive it. In pursuit of this objective, the different teams are developing a variety of new techniques, and refining existing ones. Here we describe these projects, their science goals, and the technical challenges which are being addressed to maximise the science return.
One of the five key science projects for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) is The Origin and Evolution of Cosmic Magnetism, in which radio polarimetry will be used to reveal what cosmic magnets look like and what role they have played in the evolving Universe. Many of the SKA prototypes now being built are also targeting magnetic fields and polarimetry as key science areas. Here I review the prospects for innovative new polarimetry and Faraday rotation experiments with forthcoming facilities such as ASKAP, LOFAR, the ATA, the EVLA, and ultimately the SKA. Sensitive wide-field polarisation surveys with these telescopes will provide a dramatic new view of magnetic fields in the Milky Way, in nearby galaxies and clusters, and in the high-redshift Universe.
The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) is a planned large radio interferometer designed to operate over a wide range of frequencies, and with an order of magnitude greater sensitivity and survey speed than any current radio telescope. The SKA will address many important topics in astronomy, ranging from planet formation to distant galaxies. However, in this work, we consider the perspective of the SKA as a facility for studying physics. We review four areas in which the SKA is expected to make major contributions to our understanding of fundamental physics: cosmic dawn and reionisation; gravity and gravitational radiation; cosmology and dark energy; and dark matter and astroparticle physics. These discussions demonstrate that the SKA will be a spectacular physics machine, which will provide many new breakthroughs and novel insights on matter, energy and spacetime.
We explore the potential use of the Radio Continuum (RC) survey conducted by the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) to remove (delens) the lensing-induced B-mode polarization and thus enhance future cosmic microwave background (CMB) searches for inflationary gravitational waves. Measurements of large-scale B-modes of the CMB are considered to be the best method for probing gravitational waves from the cosmic inflation. Future CMB experiments will, however, suffer from contamination by non-primordial B-modes, one source of which is the lensing B-modes. Delensing, therefore, will be required for further improvement of the detection sensitivity for gravitational waves. Analyzing the use of the two-dimensional map of galaxy distribution provided by the SKA RC survey as a lensing mass tracer, we find that joint delensing using near future CMB experiments and the SKA phase 1 will improve the constraints on the tensor-to-scalar ratio by more than a factor of $sim 2$ compared to those without the delensing analysis. Compared to the use of CMB data alone, the inclusion of the SKA phase 1 data will increase the significance of the constraints on the tensor-to-scalar ratio by a factor $1.2$-$1.6$. For LiteBIRD combined with a ground-based experiment such as Simons Array and Advanced ACT, the constraint on the tensor-to-scalar ratio when adding SKA phase 2 data is improved by a factor of $2.3$-$2.7$, whereas delensing with CMB data alone improves the constraints by only a factor $1.3$-$1.7$. We conclude that the use of SKA data is a promising method for delensing upcoming CMB experiments such as LiteBIRD.
The era of the Square Kilometre Array is almost upon us, and pathfinder telescopes are already in operation. This brief review summarizes our current knowledge of extragalactic radio sources, accumulated through six decades of continuum surveys at the low-frequency end of the electromagnetic spectrum and the extensive complementary observations at other wavelengths necessary to gain this understanding. The relationships between radio survey data and surveys at other wavelengths are discussed. Some of the outstanding questions are identified and prospects over the next few years are outlined.
The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) will answer fundamental questions about the origin, evolution, properties, and influence of magnetic fields throughout the Universe. Magnetic fields can illuminate and influence phenomena as diverse as star formation, galactic dynamics, fast radio bursts, active galactic nuclei, large-scale structure, and Dark Matter annihilation. Preparations for the SKA are swiftly continuing worldwide, and the community is making tremendous observational progress in the field of cosmic magnetism using data from a powerful international suite of SKA pathfinder and precursor telescopes. In this contribution, we revisit community plans for magnetism research using the SKA, in the light of these recent rapid developments. We focus in particular on the impact that new radio telescope instrumentation is generating, thus advancing our understanding of key SKA magnetism science areas, as well as the new techniques that are required for processing and interpreting the data. We discuss these recent developments in the context of the ultimate scientific goals for the SKA era.