Interstellar scintillation, AGN physics and the SKA

A large fraction of compact, extragalactic radio sources exhibit rapid variability at centimetre wavelengths as their radio emission is scattered by electron density fluctuations in the interstellar medium of the Galaxy. Next-generation wide-field radio telescopes will have to account for this in fo...

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Main Authors: Bignall, Hayley, Lovell, J, Rickett, B.J., Macquart, Jean-Pierre, Jauncey, J., Kedziora-Chudczer, L., Ojha, Roopesh, Pursimo, T., Senkbeil, C., Shabala, S., Dutka, M.
Format: Conference Paper
Published: Australian Institute of Physics AIP 2008
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/29990
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author Bignall, Hayley
Lovell, J
Rickett, B.J.
Macquart, Jean-Pierre
Jauncey, J.
Kedziora-Chudczer, L.
Ojha, Roopesh
Pursimo, T.
Senkbeil, C.
Shabala, S.
Dutka, M.
author_facet Bignall, Hayley
Lovell, J
Rickett, B.J.
Macquart, Jean-Pierre
Jauncey, J.
Kedziora-Chudczer, L.
Ojha, Roopesh
Pursimo, T.
Senkbeil, C.
Shabala, S.
Dutka, M.
author_sort Bignall, Hayley
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description A large fraction of compact, extragalactic radio sources exhibit rapid variability at centimetre wavelengths as their radio emission is scattered by electron density fluctuations in the interstellar medium of the Galaxy. Next-generation wide-field radio telescopes will have to account for this in forming deep images of the radio sky. Interstellar scintillation offers a unique probe of very small-scale structure in both the ionized interstellar medium and the compact jets of the radio sources themselves. The effective resolution is two orders of magnitude higher than achievable with very long baseline interferometry. The recent Micro-Arcsecond Scintillation-Induced Variability Survey revealed a reduction in ISS at 4.9 GHz with increasing source redshift, implying either an increase in the apparent angular size of high-redshift radio cores beyond that expected due to a cosmological decrease in brightness, or a decrease in the microarcsecond-scale core dominance towards high redshift. The result could be due either to source-intrinsic evolution in the selected sample, or to scatter-broadening in the intergalactic medium.
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format Conference Paper
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institution Curtin University Malaysia
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last_indexed 2025-11-14T08:16:54Z
publishDate 2008
publisher Australian Institute of Physics AIP
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-299902017-01-30T13:16:38Z Interstellar scintillation, AGN physics and the SKA Bignall, Hayley Lovell, J Rickett, B.J. Macquart, Jean-Pierre Jauncey, J. Kedziora-Chudczer, L. Ojha, Roopesh Pursimo, T. Senkbeil, C. Shabala, S. Dutka, M. A large fraction of compact, extragalactic radio sources exhibit rapid variability at centimetre wavelengths as their radio emission is scattered by electron density fluctuations in the interstellar medium of the Galaxy. Next-generation wide-field radio telescopes will have to account for this in forming deep images of the radio sky. Interstellar scintillation offers a unique probe of very small-scale structure in both the ionized interstellar medium and the compact jets of the radio sources themselves. The effective resolution is two orders of magnitude higher than achievable with very long baseline interferometry. The recent Micro-Arcsecond Scintillation-Induced Variability Survey revealed a reduction in ISS at 4.9 GHz with increasing source redshift, implying either an increase in the apparent angular size of high-redshift radio cores beyond that expected due to a cosmological decrease in brightness, or a decrease in the microarcsecond-scale core dominance towards high redshift. The result could be due either to source-intrinsic evolution in the selected sample, or to scatter-broadening in the intergalactic medium. 2008 Conference Paper http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/29990 Australian Institute of Physics AIP fulltext
spellingShingle Bignall, Hayley
Lovell, J
Rickett, B.J.
Macquart, Jean-Pierre
Jauncey, J.
Kedziora-Chudczer, L.
Ojha, Roopesh
Pursimo, T.
Senkbeil, C.
Shabala, S.
Dutka, M.
Interstellar scintillation, AGN physics and the SKA
title Interstellar scintillation, AGN physics and the SKA
title_full Interstellar scintillation, AGN physics and the SKA
title_fullStr Interstellar scintillation, AGN physics and the SKA
title_full_unstemmed Interstellar scintillation, AGN physics and the SKA
title_short Interstellar scintillation, AGN physics and the SKA
title_sort interstellar scintillation, agn physics and the ska
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/29990