Splinter Meeting Non-Thermal

Surveying the non-thermal Universe

Time: Tuesday September 19, 14:00-16:30

Room: HS4

Organizers: Dominik Elsässer (TU Dortmund), Marcus Brüggen (Uni HH), Matthias Hoeft (TLS Tautenburg), Karl Mannheim (Uni Würzburg)

Future large surveys will have a transformational effect for many areas of observational astronomy and influence our understanding of the Universe on all scales. At the same time, handling of the enormous amounts of data and development of efficient analysis pipelines and source finding algorithms amount to unprecedented challenges at the crossroads between astronomy and data science.

These challenges and opportunities ahead pertain not only to the regime of large optical and X-ray surveys, but also to telescope arrays designed to survey the non-thermal Universe.

In the low- and mid-frequency radio regime, this era will be ushered in by the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). To rigorously explore the potential of the SKA and to develop necessary tools and methods, around the world a host of pathfinder and precursor telescopes are operating or will soon enter operational status. Among them LOFAR, the European VLBI Network, the Karl G. Jansky VLA, and the 64-dish MeerKAT array. At the high-energy frontier, the LAT instrument onboard Fermi continues to provide unprecedented coverage of the gamma-ray sky while the first telescopes of the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) are in advanced construction status.

With high-quality observations and initial surveys at a number of these facilities already being carried out it is now demanding to optimize analysis pipelines for key science aspects and to maximize synergies and thus scientific harvest during the transition to the era of large-scale surveys. This splinter meeting will provide a base for scientists from different fields to discuss challenges and opportunities of the multi-wavelength perspective of the non-thermal Universe in light of present and future facilities.

Program

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