ThunderKAT: The MeerKAT Large Survey Project for Image-Plane Radio Transients

Richard Armstrong , Paul Groot , Vanessa Mcbride , James Miller-Jones , Kunal Mooley , Ben Stappers , Ralph Wijers , Michael Bietenholz , Sarah Blyth , Markus Bottcher , David Buckley , Phil Charles , Laura Chomiuk , Deanne Coppejans , Stéphane Corbel (1, 2) , Mickael Coriat (3) , Frederic Daigne (4) , Erwin de Blok , Heino Falcke , Julien Girard (1) , Ian Heywood , Assaf Horesh , Jasper Horrell , Peter Jonker , Tana Joseph , Atish Kamble , Christian Knigge , Elmar Körding , Marissa Kotze , Chryssa Kouveliotou , Christine Lynch , Tom Maccarone , Pieter Meintjes , Simone Migliari , Tara Murphy , Takahiro Nagayama , Gijs Nelemans , George Nicholson , Tim O'Brien , Alida Oodendaal , Nadeem Oozeer , Julian Osborne , Miguel Perez-Torres , Simon Ratcliffe , Valerio Ribeiro , Evert Rol , Anthony Rushton , Anna Scaife , Matthew Schurch , Greg Sivakoff , Tim Staley , Danny Steeghs , Ian Stewart , John Swinbank , Kurt van Der Heyden , Alexander van Der Horst , Brian van Soelen , Susanna Vergani (5) , Brian Warner , Klaas Wiersema

1 AIM (UMR7158 / UMR_E_9005 / UM_112) - Astrophysique Interprétation Modélisation
2 USN - Unité Scientifique de la Station de Nançay
3 IRAP - Institut de recherche en astrophysique et planétologie
4 IAP - Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris
5 GEPI - Galaxies, Etoiles, Physique, Instrumentation

ThunderKAT is the image-plane transients programme for MeerKAT. The goal as outlined in 2010, and still today, is to find, identify and understand high-energy astrophysical processes via their radio emission (often in concert with observations at other wavelengths). Through a comprehensive and complementary programme of surveying and monitoring Galactic synchrotron transients (across a range of compact accretors and a range of other explosive phenomena) and exploring distinct populations of extragalactic synchrotron transients (microquasars, supernovae and possibly yet unknown transient phenomena) - both from direct surveys and commensal observations - we will revolutionise our understanding of the dynamic and explosive transient radio sky. As well as performing targeted programmes of our own, we have made agreements with the other MeerKAT large survey projects (LSPs) that we will also search their data for transients. This commensal use of the other surveys, which remains one of our key programme goals in 2016, means that the combined MeerKAT LSPs will produce by far the largest GHz-frequency radio transient programme to date.

Domaines: Astrophysique [astro-ph]

Richard Armstrong, Paul Groot, Vanessa Mcbride, James Miller-Jones, Kunal Mooley, et al.. ThunderKAT: The MeerKAT Large Survey Project for Image-Plane Radio Transients. MeerKAT Science, May 2016, Stellenbosch, South Africa. pp.013, ⟨10.22323/1.277.0013⟩. ⟨hal-01703862⟩