LOFAR and APERTIF Surveys of the Radio Sky: Probing Shocks and Magnetic Fields in Galaxy Clusters
Journal article, 2011
At very low frequencies, the new pan-European radio telescope LOFAR is opening the last unexplored window of the electromagnetic spectrum for astrophysical studies. The revolutionary APERTIF-phased arrays that are about to be installed on the Westerbork radio telescope (WSRT) will dramatically increase the survey speed for the WSRT. Combined surveys with these two facilities will deeply chart the northern sky over almost two decades in radio frequency from similar to 15 up to 1400 MHz. Here we briefly describe some of the capabilities of these new facilities and what radio surveys are planned to study fun-damental issues related to the formation and evolution of galaxies and clusters of galaxies. In the second part we briefly review some recent observational results directly showing that diffuse radio emission in clusters traces shocks due to cluster mergers. As these diffuse radio sources are relatively bright at low frequencies, LOFAR should be able to detect thousands of such sources up to the epoch of cluster formation. This will allow addressing many question about the origin and evolution of shocks and magnetic fields in clusters. At the end we briefly review some of the first and very preliminary LOFAR results on clusters.
radio continuum:
abell 2256
galaxies
halos
intracluster medium
emission
1.4 ghz
Galaxies: clusters: general
radio telescopes
Author
H. Rottgering
Leiden University
J. Afonso
University of Lisbon
P. D. Barthel
University of Groningen
Fabien Batejat
Chalmers, Earth and Space Sciences, Onsala Space Observatory
P. Best
Royal Observatory
A. Bonafede
Jacobs University Bremen
M. Brüggen
Jacobs University Bremen
G. Brunetti
Istituto di Radioastronomia
K. Chyzy
Jagiellonian University in Kraków
John Conway
Chalmers, Earth and Space Sciences, Onsala Space Observatory
F. De Gasperin
Max Planck Society
C. Ferrari
Observatoire de la Cote d'Azur
M. Haverkorn
Leiden University
Radboud University
Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON)
G. Heald
Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON)
M. Hoeft
Thüringer Landessternwarte Tautenburg
N. Jackson
University of Manchester
M.J. Jarvis
University of Hertfordshire
L. Ker
Royal Observatory
M. Lehnert
Observatoire de Paris-Meudon
G. Macario
Istituto di Radioastronomia
J. McKean
Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON)
G. Miley
Leiden University
R. Morganti
Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON)
University of Groningen
T. Oosterloo
Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON)
University of Groningen
E. Orru
Radboud University
R. Pizzo
Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON)
D. Rafferty
Leiden University
A. Shulevski
University of Groningen
C. Tasse
Observatoire de Paris-Meudon
I. van Bemmel
Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON)
B. van der Tol
Leiden University
R. van Weeren
Leiden University
M. Verheijen
University of Groningen
G. White
Open University
M. Wise
Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON)
Journal of Astrophysics and Astronomy
0250-6335 (ISSN)
Vol. 32 4 557-566Subject Categories
Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology
DOI
10.1007/s12036-011-9129-x