Daily Image
08-10-2018
The second HI absorption workshop
| Submitter: | Robert Schulz & Raffaella Morganti |
| Description: | HI absorption offers a unique tool for studying all kind of objects in the Universe. It can be probed out to much larger distances than HI emission and one can detect it even at the highest resolution offered by VLBI. We are about to take the exciting next step in the exploration of HI absorption with new radio telescopes becoming available (ASKAP, MeerKat and Apertif) and which are close to starting a range of large surveys. To coordinate the efforts and to exchange technical and scientific expertise in this area, ASTRON hosted a small but active workshop from 29-31 August 2018. This was the second meeting of this kind, following the very successful first one of last year which also took place at ASTRON (see the Daily Image of 27 June 2017). This year's meeting was in particular useful in attracting interest from a broader community, apart from the "standard" HI absorption folks. Several teams of non-radio astronomers were present and lively discussions took place on the synergy between the Apertif HI absorption survey and the surveys planned for WEAVE (the integral field spectrograph to be installed at the WHT) as well as the imaging surveys planned by the JPAS group on the new Observatorio Astrofisico de Javalambre in Spain. Furthermore, the workshop provided an update on the progress made in the preparations of the absorption surveys and the first interesting results coming from all pathfinders were shown! A variety of science talks covered all topics, from low- to high-redshift, associated absorption as well as intervening absorption, large-area low-resolution surveys but also detailed studies at high angular resolution. If you are interested, the presentations are available on the website of the meeting. An important aspect of this workshop was that much time was dedicated to discussion at the end of each session, as well as a special discussion focused on the prospects of the SKA. This helped to identify a number key points that will improve the collaboration between the groups. You can find reports from these plenary discussion sessions on the website mentioned above. A total of 33 participants from all around the world came together at ASTRON, with an almost perfect gender balance. About half the talks were given by PostDocs and PhD students. Based on the feedback from the participants, this meeting was again a success and it has been agreed to continue the good work with both IUCAA (Pune), ATNF/Sydney University and Oxford all happy to host the next editions. |
| Copyright: | astron |
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