Manasvee Saraf (UWA)

Abstract: In this talk, I will present an overview of my PhD research, conducted over the past three and a half years as a CSIRO co-supervised student. My thesis investigates the relationship between neutral atomic hydrogen gas (HI) and its environment using radio interferometric observations. I will highlight my discovery of HI absorption in the brightest cluster galaxy (BCG) of the Norma cluster, based on ATCA data, which supports the BCG’s recent arrival into the cluster core. Additionally, I will discuss my detection of 25 HI emission detections towards Norma using ASKAP data, alongside my contribution to and findings from the optimisation of the WALLABY data-processing and HI source-finding pipelines in the presence of bright continuum sources. Finally, I will contextualise my findings within a broader range of environments, focusing on my analysis of the scatter in the HI-halo mass relation of central galaxies from the xGASS survey, where I found a strong correlation with stellar specific angular momentum, offering key insights for simulations.