Project area/S
- Extragalactic Radio Science; Spectral-line Radio Astronomy
Project Details
An example of the detections we’ve seen in MeerKAT observations. Cold neutral hydrogen gas, from which stars form from, is given by the white contours overlaid on DeCALS imaging. This example showcases four galaxies in a group environment interacting with each other, where one galaxy is stealing the gas from its companions. Image credit: Marcin Glowacki.
We’ve established an interesting problem with data from the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa: it’s so good that the more we look at other parts of the data, the more new galaxies we’re finding through the detection of the cold, star-forming gas! Last year we discovered over 80 brand-new galaxies in MeerKAT observations, or over 20 every observation, and an exciting ‘dark cloud’ of gas was detected which we are exploring further. Now we have even more MeerKAT data in hand, but finding and analysing new galaxies manually will be quite timely.
The student will work with the new MeerKAT data and build upon previous work to help streamline the data reduction and detection of gas-rich galaxies. They will help create a pipeline to streamline the source finding and further analysis of the galaxies with additional data from optical and mid-infrared telescopes.
Student Attributes
Academic Background
Physics/Astronomy preferred but not necessary
Computing Skills
Some experience in coding, e.g. in Python (preferred but not necessary)
Training Requirement
Some basic Linux and supercomputing usage may be useful
Project Timeline
| Week 1 | Inductions and project introduction |
| Week 2 | Initial presentation |
| Week 3 | Learning basics of matter content of galaxies focus on HI and data reduction |
| Week 4 | Searching via CARTA and learning how to run the SoFiA source-finding algorithm on MeerKAT observations |
| Week 5 | Creating HI moment maps and spectra of detections |
| Week 6 | Cross-matching the galaxy detections with ancillary data and begin development of a streamlined approach to source finding |
| Week 7 | Complete streamlining the automated source finding workflow; work on existing script for obtaining ancillary data and calculating galaxy properties |
| Week 8 | Further enhancements and automation of the post-analysis scripts |
| Week 9 | Final presentation |
| Week 10 | Final report |
