The MeerTime Pulsar Timing Array — A Census of Emission Properties and Timing Potential

MeerTime is a five-year Large Survey Project to time pulsars with MeerKAT, the 64-dish South African precursor to the Square Kilometre Array. The science goals for the programme include timing millisecond pulsars (MSPs) to high precision (< 1 μs) to study the Galactic MSP population and to contribute to global efforts to detect nanohertz gravitational waves …

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Direct Optimal Mapping for 21cm Cosmology: A Demonstration with the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array

Motivated by the desire for wide-field images with well-defined statistical properties for 21cm cosmology, we implement an optimal mapping pipeline that computes a maximum likelihood estimator for the sky using the interferometric measurement equation. We demonstrate this direct optimal mapping with data from the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization (HERA) Phase I observations. After validating the …

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MIGHTEE-HI: The relation between the HI gas in galaxies and the cosmic web

We study the 3D axis of rotation (3D spin) of 77 HI galaxies from the MIGHTEE-HI Early Science observations, and its relation to the filaments of the cosmic web. For this HI-selected sample, the alignment between the spin axis and the closest filament (|cosψ|) is higher for galaxies closer to the filaments, with ⟨|cosψ|⟩=0.66±0.04 for galaxies <5Mpc from …

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Megamaser “Nkalakatha” discovered by astronomers using MeerKAT

Using the MeerKAT radio telescope, a team of researchers from the University of the Western Cape, the University of Cape Town, Rhodes University, the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory and the South African Astronomical Observatory together with colleagues from twelve other countries have discovered a powerful megamaser – a radio-wavelength laser indicative of colliding galaxies. …

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Snowmass2021 Cosmic Frontier White Paper: Enabling Flagship Dark Energy Experiments to Reach their Full Potential

A new generation of powerful dark energy experiments will open new vistas for cosmology in the next decade. However, these projects cannot reach their utmost potential without data from other telescopes. This white paper focuses in particular on the compelling benefits of ground-based spectroscopic and photometric observations to complement the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, as …

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Measurements of one-point statistics in 21 cm intensity maps via foreground avoidance strategy

Measurements of the one-point probability distribution function and higher-order moments (variance, skewness, and kurtosis) of the high-redshift 21 cm fluctuations are among the most direct statistical probes of the non-Gaussian nature of structure formation and evolution during reionization. However, contamination from astrophysical foregrounds and instrument systematics pose significant challenges in measuring these statistics in real …

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High-ionisation oxygen absorption from the Warm-Hot Intergalactic Medium in Simba

We examine the physical conditions, environments, and statistical properties of intergalactic Ovi, Ovii and Oviii absorbers in the Simba cosmological hydrodynamic simulation suite. The goal is to understand the nature of these high ionisation absorbers, and test Simba’s surprising prediction that ∼70% of cosmic baryons at z=0 are in the Warm-Hot Intergalactic Medium (WHIM) driven by jet feedback from …

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Pulsar scintillation studies with LOFAR. I. The census

Context. Interstellar scintillation (ISS) of pulsar emission can be used both as a probe of the ionised interstellar medium (IISM) and cause corruptions in pulsar timing experiments. Of particular interest are so-called scintillation arcs which can be used to measure time-variable interstellar scattering delays directly, potentially allowing high-precision improvements to timing precision. Aims. The primary aim …

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Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): Data Release 4 and the z < 0.1 total and z < 0.08 morphological galaxy stellar mass functions

In Galaxy And Mass Assembly Data Release 4 (GAMA DR4), we make available our full spectroscopic redshift sample. This includes 248682 galaxy spectra, and, in combination with earlier surveys, results in 330542 redshifts across five sky regions covering ~250deg^2. The redshift density, is the highest available over such a sustained area, has exceptionally high completeness …

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