Russ Taylor (University of Calgary)

GALFACTS: The Galactic ALFA Continuum Transit Survey -- Russ Taylor Colloquium

Marsfield Lecture Theatre

Abstract

The GALFACTS project is using the L-band seven feed array receiver system on the Arecibo telescope to carry out an imaging spectro-polarimetric survey of the 30 degrees of the sky visible from Arecibo. The survey will create full-Stokes image cubes at an angular resolution of 3.5 with several thousand spectral channels covering 1225 - 1525 MHz, and band-averaged sensitivity of 90 microJy, allowing sensitive imaging of polarized radiation and Faraday Rotation Measure from both diffuse emission and against a high density grid of extragalactic sources. GALFACTS will be a major observational advance in imaging of the polarized radiation from the Milky Way and the extragalactic sky. It will provide a rich new database for exploration of the magnetic field of the Galaxy, the properties of the magneto-ionic medium and the polarization properties of over 10^5 background radio galaxies. I will describe the GALFACTS project and show some of the initial data.