SPARCS IX - Pathfinders get to work
06-10 May 2019, Lisboa, Portugal

The IXth SKA Pathfinder Radio Continuum Survey Group (SPARCS) meeting takes place in Lisbon, between the 6th and 10th May 2019.

Aims of the meeting
As part of the lead-up to the Square Kilometre Array project, several next-generation radio telescopes and upgrades are already being built around the world, including LOFAR (The Netherlands), ASKAP (Australia), Meerkat (South Africa), EVLA (USA), uGMRT (India), eMERLIN (UK), and Apertif (The Netherlands). Most of these projects aim to survey the radio continuum emission from galaxies, in order to understand their formation and evolution over cosmic time, and the cosmological parameters and large-scale structures which drive it. In order to maximize the scientific return from these projects, the SKA PAthfinder Radio Continuum Survey (SPARCS) Working Group was established, with the following goals:

1. To coordinate developments of techniques, to avoid duplication of effort and ensure that each project has access to best practice;
2. To hold cross-project discussions of the specific science goals, to ensure cross-fertilisation of ideas and optimum survey strategies;
3. To coordinate the surveys in their choice of area, depth, location on the sky, and other survey parameters, to maximise the science return from the surveys;
4. To distil the SKA pathfinder experiences into input to the SKA.

In 2019, the IXth meeting of the SPARCS team will bring together experts from around the world to discuss the development status of the SKA-pathfinder projects and discuss some of the first results of Early Science being produced by that the various projects.

Group Photo


SOC
Jose Afonso, IA, Portugal
Carole Jackson, ASTRON, Netherlands
Ray Norris, WSU/CSIRO, Australia
Russ Taylor, UCT, South Africa

LOC
José Afonso, Sandra Homem, Israel Matute, Ciro Pappalardo, Stergios Amarantidis