Center for Astrophysics Research and Technologies Seminar Series
Monitoring the Low Frequency Radio Transient Sky with the Long Wavelength Array
Presented by Savin Shynu Varghese (UNM)
Transient searches in radio astronomy have discovered some of the extreme astrophysical phenomena in our universe. Most of the transient searches over the past 70 years have been focused at frequencies higher than 100 MHz leaving the transient sky below 100 MHz unexplored. The Long Wavelength Array (LWA) telescope offers an excellent opportunity to study the transient sky below 100 MHz with its wide field of view, high sensitivity, and faster imaging at shorter timescales. This talk will focus on the recent transient searches carried out using the all-sky imaging capabilities of the LWA stations located in New Mexico (LWA1 & LWA-SV) and the LWA Owens Valley Radio Observatory (LWA-OVRO) located in California. Blind searches of the sky using LWA1 and LWA-SV in the past 2 years detected a new cosmic transient source at 34 MHz with a flux density of 830 Jy and 15 seconds duration. Along with cosmic transients, we also study radio emission from meteors known as meteor radio afterglows (MRAs). The combined observations of MRAs using LWA1 and LWA-SV revealed their isotropic emission nature. Also, a new broadband imager at LWA-SV is used to collect the spectra of MRAs and understand the correlation between spectral parameters and physical properties of MRAs. Finally I will conclude the talk with our recent efforts on using LWA-OVRO to study the small scale emission regions of MRAs through high angular resolution observations.
2:00 pm, Thursday, October 29, 2020
Zoom,
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