Exploring Extended Radio Emission in DAFT/FADA High-Redshift Galaxy Clusters

Project Description:

The goal of this project is to investigate extended diffuse radio emission properties in two high redshift galaxy clusters from the Dark Energy American French Team (DAFT/FADA) survey. This emission may exist in the form of radio halos and relics, and carries crucial information about the presence of relativistic particles and magnetic fields in the intracluster medium (ICM), and about acceleration processes in these large-scale structures of the universe. Not much is known about the radio halo (and relic) population beyond z ⩾ 0.5. So far, a few galaxy clusters hosting radio halos (and relics) at high redshifts (z > 0.5) have been detected. Detecting radio halos in very disturbed clusters at high redshifts will be crucial in increasing the sample of radio halos at these redshifts. Furthermore, a better understanding of the properties of the halo emission will help fill in the gaps in our knowledge about non-thermal cluster physics at high redshifts, up to when the Universe was only half its current age. The student who takes up this project will work with data obtained with the upgraded Giant Metre Radio Telescope (uGMRT) at 325 MHz and 610 MHz. Also, they will conduct a search for Giant Radio Galaxies (GRGs) in the cluster fields, which are extreme cases of standard radio galaxies with sizes that are > 0.7 Mpc.

Research Area:

Astronomy

Project Level:

Masters

This Project Is Offered At The Following Node(s):

(NWU)