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18-02-2015
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New LOFAR PhD thesis: AGN relics in the radio sky

Submitter: Raffaella Morganti
Description: We all know that LOFAR is not yet an easy instrument to use and obtaining science quality images is still a struggle. However, the potential of this telescope is now becoming reality thanks to the dedication of a number of (young) people. Among these is Aleksandar Shulevski, who has successfully defended his thesis in Groningen on friday Feb 6.

Aleksandar has completed a thesis focused on LOFAR data of radio galaxies, analysing their spectral properties to derive parameters about their active life. His PhD has been a shared project between ASTRON and the Kapteyn Institute, with Raffaella Morganti and Peter Barthel as supervisors.

As John McKean pointed out in his question to the candidate during the ceremony, the thesis nicely shows the evolution, in the last four years, of LOFAR, with the improvement of both the quality of the data as well as the calibration techniques.

The work of Aleksandar has initially been limited by the quality of the LOFAR images and he had to focus on the study of single (known) objects. However, the thesis shows the importance of low frequencies for deriving the time-scale of the active and quiescent phase of radio sources.

Aleksandar has two papers based on LOFAR data already submitted to Astronomy & Astrophysics and one about to be. Hopefully he will have the chance to use and expand what he has done for his thesis during his postDoc in the Support group of the RO.

Good luck, Aleksandar!
Copyright: Morganti
 
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