Science
The MWA is an inherently versatile instrument with a wide range of potential science goals. Scientific priorities during the early science phase will be determined partly by the evolving instrumental capabilities, and partly by the potential of such studies to accelerate commissioning and the initiation of the key science projects.
In astronomy, the highest priority key science project is detection of red-shifted 21 cm signals from HI during the EoR, using power spectral techniques, direct detection of quasar ionised “bubbles”, or both. The MWA will be one of the most sensitive EoR instruments yet constructed: its observations should characterize the properties of the sources that are responsible for ionizing the intergalactic medium, chart the evolution of the global neutral fraction, and probe the nature of quasar emissions by constraining the properties of their ionized proximity zones.
In solar, heliospheric and ionospheric (SHI) research, the highest priority is characterisation of the heliospheric magneto-ionic medium via interplanetary scintillation and Faraday rotation propagation effects using background astronomical radio sources.
Secondary key science projects include radio transient detection and monitoring, solar burst imaging, studies of ionospheric phenomena, and a variety of astronomical studies using all-sky survey data. Examples of the latter include Faraday tomography of the interstellar medium, the galactic distribution of cosmic rays, the hidden population of galactic supernova remnants, pulsar emission mechanisms and population statistics, and the low-frequency cosmic web. Most of these secondary projects can be conducted using data collected during or in support of the two highest-priority key science projects, in part because accurate calibration of the MWA requires comprehensive characterisation of the sky across wide instantaneous fields-of-view, as well as accurate characterisation of the behaviour of the ionosphere.
Read more about this topic: Murchison Widefield Array
Famous quotes containing the word science:
“Science is properly more scrupulous than dogma. Dogma gives a charter to mistake, but the very breath of science is a contest with mistake, and must keep the conscience alive.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“Imagination could hardly do without metaphor, for imagination is, literally, the moving around in one’s mind of images, and such images tend commonly to be metaphoric. Creative minds, as we know, are rich in images and metaphors, and this is true in science and art alike. The difference between scientist and artist has little to do with the ways of the creative imagination; everything to do with the manner of demonstration and verification of what has been seen or imagined.”
—Robert A. Nisbet (b. 1913)
“Until politics are a branch of science we shall do well to regard political and social reforms as experiments rather than short-cuts to the millennium.”
—J.B.S. (John Burdon Sanderson)