Title: The non-thermal Universe in the SKA era, at the lowest frequencies

Place: Seminar del DAA. Jeroni Muñoz Research Building, fourth floor, in Burjassot.

Day: Wendsday, february 12 , 2025. Time: 12:00.

Abstract:

Radio-astronomy is one of the younger disciplines in the field, but its ability to observe the non-thermal sky has allowed it to act as an entirely new window into our Universe at all physical scales. The next decades will see an entirely new generation of radio telescopes come online, from the SKA in the Southern hemisphere to the ngVLA in the North. I will focus on the perspectives that the SKA-Low, and its precursor LOFAR, will bring for astronomy, as these instruments can measure signals from the sky down to the lowest frequencies detectable on Earth. These allow, in particular, to probe both new plasma regimes (relevant for the study of star-planet interactions but also jet physics) and to study the history of known plasma populations in the Universe at all scales. I will cover the significance of these developments for star-planet interactions, the study of the interstellar and intergalactic media, and cosmological structure formation.