20–27 Mar 2026
Wild View Resorts
Africa/Gaborone timezone

Preparing for the SKA Era with Observation-Driven Mock Radio Halo Catalogues

26 Mar 2026, 11:15
15m
Wild View Resorts

Wild View Resorts

Plot 80 President Avenue, Kasane, Botswana
In-person - Talk 6 Galaxy Clusters Science & Engineering

Speaker

Swarna Chatterjee (Rhodes University)

Description

Galaxy clusters are the largest gravitationally bound structures in the universe, hosting megaparsec-scale diffuse radio emission in the form of halos and relics. These non-thermal synchrotron sources trace shocks, turbulence, and magnetic fields in the intracluster medium, providing a unique window into particle acceleration processes and cosmic magnetism. The upcoming Square Kilometre Array (SKA) will revolutionise our ability to study these faint, extended sources, but it will also require advanced automation in data analysis. To prepare for the SKA era, statistically robust mock datasets and automated tools are essential for overcoming observational biases and enabling effective machine learning (ML) applications. As a key component of this effort, we are developing observation-based framework to generate realistic mock catalogues of cluster-scale radio emission. These catalogues will play a critical role in training automated detection algorithms and assessing biases in observational samples. This talk will present an overview of the framework and the initial results from our study.

Stream Science or Engineering

Primary author

Swarna Chatterjee (Rhodes University)

Co-authors

Dr Emma Tolley (Swiss Federal Technology Institute of Lausanne) Dr Kenda Knowles (Rhodes University, SARAO)

Presentation materials

There are no materials yet.