| Name: | Divya Oberoi |
| Affiliation: | NCRA-TIFR |
| Conference ID : | ASI2024_109 |
| Title : | Imaging the Sun With MeerKAT: Opening a New Frontier in Solar Physics |
| Authors : | Divya Oberoi (1), Devojyoti Kansabanik (1), Surajit Mondal (2)
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| Authors Affiliation: | 1 - National Centre for Radio Astrophysics, Pune-411007, India
2 - New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ USA |
| Mode of Presentation: | Poster |
| Abstract Category : | Sun, Solar System, Exoplanets, and Astrobiology |
| Abstract : | Solar radio emissions provide several unique diagnostics to estimate different physical parameters of the solar corona, which are otherwise simply inaccessible. However, imaging the highly dynamic solar coronal emissions spanning a large range of angular scales at radio wavelengths is extremely challenging. At GHz frequencies, MeerKAT radio telescope is possibly globally the best-suited instrument at present for providing high-fidelity spectroscopic snapshot solar images. We present the first published spectroscopic images of the Sun made using the observations with MeerKAT in the 880 - 1670 MHz band. These images demonstrate the high fidelity of spectroscopic snapshot MeerKAT solar images through a comparison with simulated radio images at MeerKAT frequencies. The observed images show extremely good morphological similarities with the simulated images. We are currently working on commissioning solar observations with MeerKAT. Once commissioned, these observations will enable a host of novel studies, open the door to a large unexplored phase space with significant discovery potential, and also pave the way for solar science with the upcoming Square Kilometre Array-Mid telescope, for which MeerKAT is a precursor. |
