Coffee talks
Friday 12/11/2021 @ 11:30, On-line - meet.google.com/sue-bwvk-axf
Kenda Knowles (Rhodes University), "A MeerKAT view of galaxy clusters"
Galaxy clusters are the largest known gravitationally bound structures, and lie at the intersection of cosmology and astrophysics. In the radio, some galaxy clusters are found to host Mpc-scale diffuse emission. This is synchrotron emission caused by high energy particles spiralling in a magnetic field. This diffuse emission is therefore critical for understanding the non-thermal physics and magnetic fields in cluster environments, aspects difficult to probe at other wavelengths. I will discuss some of the work I’ve been doing with MeerKAT to study this emission through short-track observations of SZ-selected clusters with the MERGHERS programme, and introduce the MeerKAT Galaxy Cluster Legacy Survey, a heterogeneous sample of radio and X-ray selected galaxy clusters observed for 6-10 hours each over the past two years with the full array.