Jordon Collier (AusSRC/CIRA)

Jordon Collier Colloquium: Clouds over middle-earth: using ilifu to combine the MeerKAT and the EMU for ORCs

Kensington/Teams

Abstract

Combining ASKAP's EMU survey and MeerKAT enables complementary science; ASKAP's large FoV enables the discovery of new/rare types of objects, like Odd Radio Circles (ORCs), while MeerKAT's sensitivity enables deep follow up of such objects. I will speak about both instruments and how they are being used to open up new phase spaces of discovery, with a particular focus on the spectral indices and polarisation of ORCs, and my experience using these telescopes within the clouds across the continents of middle-earth! As an essential part of this research, I will speak about a number of tools and systems that have been developed or adopted to deal with the PB scale of MeerKAT data at the Inter-University Institute for Data Intensive Astronomy (IDIA). I will present a number of these tools and underlying systems, deployed on IDIA's ilifu facility, including those for storage, processing, visualisation, and data transfers.