Professor Rob Fender

Abstract:

The LOw Frequency ARray is the first of the next generation of radio telescopes to be completed. It uses large numbers of small receptors and vast computing and data transport capabilities to achieve a high degree of sensitivity over large fields of view. It uses two different types of receptor to enable it to observe over the frequency range 10-260 MHz. Here we report on some of the capabilities of this telescope for pulsar and fast transient research. We also present some results of the commissioning work that we have been carrying out which highlight the exciting potential of this telescope. These include simultaneous imaging and pulsar observations, simultaneous observations spanning 30-8000 MHz, a large number of known pulsars detected in the high band and the detection of PSR B0809+74 down to a frequency of 16 MHz. © 2011 American Institute of Physics.

Abstract:

We present ultradeep radio observations with the Expanded Very Large Array of 4U 1957+11, a Galactic black hole (BH) candidate X-ray binary known to exist in a persistent soft X-ray state. We derive a stringent upper limit of 11.4 μJy beam-1 (3σ) at 5-7 GHz, which provides the most rigorous upper limit to date on the presence of jets in a soft state BH X-ray binary (BHXB). X-ray, UV, and optical fluxes obtained within a few weeks of the radio data can be explained by thermal emission from the disk. At this X-ray luminosity, a hard state BHXB that follows the established empirical radio-X-ray correlation would be at least 330-810 times brighter at radio frequencies, depending on the distance to 4U 1957+11. This jet quenching of >2.5 orders of magnitude is greater than some models predict and implies that the jets are prevented from being launched altogether in the soft state. 4U 1957+11 is also more than one order of magnitude fainter than the faintest of the "radio-quiet" population of hard state BHs. In addition, we show that, on average, soft state stellar-mass BHs probably have fainter jets than most active galactic nuclei in a state equivalent to the soft state. These results have implications for the conditions required for powerful, relativistic jets to form and provide a new empirical constraint for time- and accretion mode-dependent jet models, furthering our understanding of jet production and accretion onto BHs. © 2011. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.

Abstract:

We are at the dawn of a new golden age for radio astronomy, with a new generation of facilities under construction and the global community focused on the Square Kilometre Array as its goal for the next decade. These new facilities offer orders of magnitude improvements in survey speed compared to existing radio telescopes and arrays. Furthermore, the study of transient and variable radio sources, and what they can tell us about the extremes of astrophysics as well as the state of the diffuse intervening media, have been embraced as key science projects for these new facilities. In this paper we review the studies of the populations of radio transients made to date, largely based upon archival surveys. Many of these radio transients and variables have been found in the image plane, and their astrophysical origin remains unclear. We take this population and combine it with sensitivity estimates for the next generation arrays to demonstrate that in the coming decade we may find ourselves detecting 105 image plane radio transients per year, providing a vast and rich field of research and an almost limitless set of targets for multi-wavelength follow up.