Magnetism KSP Status & Plans June 2012 Rainer Beck
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Magnetism KSP
Status & Plans
June 2012
Rainer Beck
MKSP science goals
Diffuse polarized emission from the Milky Way and RMs: Properties of the magnetic ISM in the Milky Way
Faraday Rotation Measures (RMs) of pulsars: Structure of the Galactic magnetic field Total and polarized emission and RMs from the outer disks and halos of nearby galaxies: Origin of magnetic fields and CR propagation Total and polarized emission and RMs from galaxy groups RMs from intergalactic filaments
Polarization from giant radio galaxies
Polarization from stellar jets
Number of members: 85 Number of countries: 14 Members from institutes in Germany: 38 (45%) Netherlands: 11 UK: 11 Poland: 8 Sweden: 5 Italy: 3 France: 2 Others: 7
MKSP members
Management Team:
R. Beck (MPIfR, PI), J.A. Anderson (MPIfR)
G. Heald (ASTRON), A. Scaife (Southampton)
Workshops and Busy Weeks 2011/12
11th MKSP Workshop Bologna 24-25 Nov 2011
12th MKSP Workshop Gothenburg 29 May – 1 June 2012
5th Polarisation Busy Week Dwingeloo 23-27 Jan 2012
DFG Research Unit Workshop on galaxy clusters Tautenburg 11-14 Dec 2011 DFG Research Unit Workshop on galaxies Bonn 21-23 March 2012
MKSP "Reserved Access" proposal (submitted on 5 March 2012)
MKSP "Reserved Access" proposal (Tier 1 and 2: jointly with Survey KSP)
Tier 1 depth is sufficient for galaxy survey in TP
Tier 2 depth is probably sufficient for deep galaxy obs in pol
SKSP proposal plan for Cycle 0 ("Tier 0")
10 nearby galaxies
to be observed
by the MKSP
Feedback on the MKSP "Reserved Access" proposal
Scientific rating: very good
Technical report on MKSP proposal: Concerns on polarization calibration
High processing requirements
Thermal noise cannot be reached in the near future
Level of polarized emission uncertain
Assignments of "Reserved Access" time
to the MKSP for Cycle 0
Available: 2409h observation time GLOW: 17% = 410h, 78h assigned to MKSP
LOFAR:NL: 58% = 1397h, 50h assigned to MKSP
LOFAR:UK: 5% =120h, 6h assigned to MKSP
LOFAR:Sweden: 5% = 120h, 12h assigned to MKSP FLOW: 5% = 120h, 5h assigned to MKSP
Total: 151h Processing time: 176h (real processing times will be larger)
MKSP commissioning
Total number of MKSP commissioners: ≈30 (22 students)
LOFAR data are crucial for 10 PhD students
7 students funded by the DFG Research Unit on Magnetism
16 MKSP members participated in MSSS data inspection
Coordination: Andreas Horneffer (DFG-funded postdoc at MPIfR)
RMs of pulsars (A. Noutsos, C. Sobey)
Beam-forming mode RMs agree with known values (except for the signs) Strong polarized fluxes, can be used as pol calibrators
Beam = 51“x37“‚ rms noise 2.5 mJy (≈ 25x thermal)
NGC4631: map from 77 SBs (W. Jurusik)
1.4 GHz, WSRT, Braun et al. 2007, A&A,461,455
1.4 GHz, VLA, Beck, unpubl.
MKSP commissioning: M51 field (6h HBA) (see talk by David Mulcahy)
Only core stations (≤ 6 km) could be used
Noise is about 15x thermal noise
MKSP: progress
Extended total emission from nearby galaxies (D. Mulcahy, W. Jurusik, R. Drzazga)
RM Synthesis (M.R. Bell, H. Junklewitz)
Polarized signals from 20 pulsars (C. Sobey, A. Noutsos, M. Kuniyoshi)
Extended polarized emission from the Milky Way (Fan region, A2255 region) (M. Iacobelli, E. Orru, R. Pizzo)
Extended polarized emission from a giant radio galaxy (E. Orru)
Dual-beam calibration strategy developed (D. Mulcahy, A. Horneffer, G. Heald)
Correction of ionospheric Faraday rotation with pulsars (C. Sotomayor, C. Sobey)
MKSP issues: technical
Calibration in pol is even more difficult than in Stokes I
(station beams, instrumental pol, ionosphere, ...)
→ No extended polarization from galaxies detected so far
Noise in pol increases strongly with decreasing elevation:
no sources below ~ +30° DEC should be observed
Processing power is insufficient to image large fields
Additional storage and processing power needed
MKSP issues: general
More dedicated commissioners needed
More software developers needed
Science data emerge slowly Polarization calibration not ready
Can we obtain images reaching thermal noise?
MKSP minimum request: rms 2x thermal
DFG funding
Research Unit FOR 1254:
Magnetisation of Interstellar and Intergalactic Media - The Prospects of Low-Frequency Radio Observations
Speaker: Uli Klein, Univ. Bonn
Vice Speaker: Rainer Beck, MPIfR Bonn
Further project leaders: M. Brüggen, R.-J. Dettmar, D. Elstner,
T. Enßlin, M. Hoeft, A. Noutsos, H. Lesch
Funded positions (June 2010 – June 2013): 10 PhD + 2 postdocs
Application for extension 2013 - 2016 will be submitted soon,
review expected in Sept 2012
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