ukSRC Supporting New Astronomical Projects
The ukSRC facility is now supporting nine new science cases as part of our expanded Demonstrator Case scheme.
This scheme is designed to support UK astronomy using SKAO precursors and pathfinders while allowing the ukSRC to develop its facility to continuing to support the next generation of discoveries in radio astronomy. The cases represent a subset of the UK SKAO community to support evolving science and new technical innovations, preparing a ukSRC fit for the coming decades of SKA science.
The Demonstrator Cases span a range of scientific objectives and technical requirements, aiming to achieve the following objectives:
- To grow UK leadership in SKA science areas and build on existing leadership in SKA pathfinder and precursor facilities.
- To engage with the UK astronomy community to review and refresh the demonstrator topics to accurately reflect research ambitions as they evolve over the project duration.
- To develop researchers’ skills, knowledge, and experience to enable full exploitation of SKA and its precursor data.
- To inform the development of the UKSRC facility and the wider SRCNet.
Below we highlight some of the supported cases, including the Principal Investigator, host institution, and title of their demonstrator cases.
| PI | Institute | Title of Demonstrator Case | SKA Science Goals |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jack Radcliffe | University of Manchester | Distributed software correlation for the next-generation of VLBI instruments and systems | Technical project contributing to multiple SKA science goals |
| John Ilee | University of Leeds | Unveiling planet-forming material around the youngest stars in Rho Oph | Our home galaxy, Seeking the origins of life |
| Keith Grainge | University of Manchester | On-The-Fly Mapping of the interferometric MeerKLASS survey data | Cosmology and dark energy |
| Mark Thompson | University of Leeds | Non-thermal radio filaments in the Galactic Plane | Our home galaxy |
| Rhaana Starling | University of Leicester | SKA-era Physics of Energetic Transients | The transient sky |
| Tianyue Chen | University of Manchester | Foreground removal with a generative network for 21cm cosmology | Probing the Cosmic Dawn, Cosmology and dark energy |
We thank all Demonstrator Case teams for their engagement and feedback. Their participations are playing a critical role in shaping UKSRC’s services, ensuring the facility is ready to support SKA community science when fully operational.