Speaker
Description
I will present an overview and report early science from the MeerKAT-South Pole Telescope (SPT) Survey, a deep MeerKAT UHF-band eXtra Large Project (XLP) legacy project recently approved to map 800 square degrees of the southern sky to a sensitivity of ~10 uJy/beam. Uniquely designed to exploit the synergy between world-leading observatories at ~1 GHz and ~100 GHz, this survey covers the deepest Cosmic Microwave Background fields in existence. In this talk, I’ll focus on early results from the survey’s first stage: a 100 square degree pilot that has already detected ~300,000 radio sources. I will highlight specific results demonstrating the strong synergy between these cm- and mm-wave telescopes, including the identification of high-redshift (z > 6) dusty star-forming galaxies, radio halos in SZ-selected galaxy clusters, and the discovery of rare phenomena like Odd Radio Circles, X-shaped radio galaxies, high-redshift OH megamasers and Long-Period Transients. Ultimately, this survey will serve as a significant pathfinder for SKA-era galaxy evolution and cosmology, with commensal image-domain transient science. Furthermore, it will provide significant radio legacy value to complement upcoming multi-wavelength campaigns with LSST, Euclid, and the Simons Observatory.