Coffee talks
Friday 09/10/2026 @ 11:50, Sala riunioni quarto piano e on-line (meet.google.com/sue-bwvk-axf)
Toivo Samuel Mabote (Rhodes University, South Africa), "New and Known Mini-Halos in the MeerKAT Galaxy Cluster Legacy Survey (MGCLS)"
Radio mini-halos (MHs) are diffuse, steep-spectrum radio sources situated within the cool cores of relaxed galaxy clusters, surrounding a central Brightest Cluster Galaxy (BCG). They are thought to originate from either sloshing-driven turbulent re-acceleration of seed electrons or secondary hadronic cosmic-ray interactions. In this presentation, I will highlight preliminary results from my PhD research: a multiwavelength radio and X-ray analysis of 13 MGCLS galaxy clusters, probing the under-explored low-mass regime (M_{500}<5×10^{14}M?). Utilizing third-generation direction-dependent calibration (3GC) and point-source subtracted image, we map and classify the diffuse radio structures. High-sensitivity MeerKAT images expose intricate morphologies, including potential hybrid mini-halo/radio halo transition systems. Furthermore, integrating these low-mass MH detections into global scaling relations reveals a stronger correlation than previously observed.