Geoff Bower
UC Berkeley, Astronomy Department
Abstract:
Radio surveys made with new instruments are producing unprecedented information on the radio sky and uncovering a wide range of new phenomena, including new classes of transient. The parameter space for radio surveys and radio transients, in particular, remains mostly open. I discuss in detail the Allen Telescope Array, which was recently commissioned and is commencing scientific operations, and the Five GHz Sky Survey (FiGSS) that we will conduct with it. FiGSS will be the deepest large, high-frequency radio survey and provide an important counterpart to existing radio surveys as well as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, contributing to studies of star forming galaxies, active galactic nuclei, dust-obscured sources, galactic foregrounds critical for cosmological observations, and transient sources. Finally, I will discuss the creation of one of the deepest radio images yet and the discovery of new unidentified, transient radio sources with archival VLA data.