Enno Middelberg (University of Bochum)

A Wider Audience: Turning VLBI into a Survey Instrument - Enno Middelberg Colloquium

ATNF Marsfield Lecture Theatre

Abstract

Radio observations using the Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) technique typically have fields of view of only a few arcseconds. Thus, while most branches of observational astronomy can carry out sensitive, wide-field surveys, VLBI observations are limited to well-selected, very compact objects, which are sparsely distributed on the sky. Recent advances in technology have made it possible to
carry out the computations required to target hundreds of sources simultaneously, and recent sensitivity upgrades have dramatically increased the number of objects accessible to VLBI observations. The combination of these two developments have made it possible to image large numbers of objects in a typical 12h observation, enabling observers to carry out VLBI survey science. In this talk I will review the recent developments in wide-field VLBI, including new calibration techniques, and then present results from two surveys which have used these techniques to target hundreds of radio sources to search for AGN.