HI absorption 2017: a workshop preparing for the upcoming absorption surveys

© astron

With data from the new radio telescopes, pathfinders/precursors of SKA slowly starting to appear, it is a good time to have a community get together for those who are interested in using these telescopes for HI absorption studies.

This week ASTRON hosts a workshop to discuss and coordinate such surveys, with experts in the field coming from all over the world.

The preparation for the workshop has already brought some interesting results, with the first detection, made with Apertif, of HI absorption in a distant active galactic nucleus (in this case 3C293, see figure).

The workshop will cover science topics that can be addressed using HI absorption (intervening and associated), including what we can learn about the feedback effects of AGNs on galaxy evolution, the properties of the ISM of galaxies at higher redshift, and the cosmic evolution of HI. The workshop aims to discuss the current state of affairs as well as the progress we hope to make with the upcoming surveys, and the technical tools that are being developed to make that progress.

for more details, have a look at http://www.astron.nl/hiabsorption2017/