Abstract:

The SKA  will be one of the great physics machines of 21st Century and, when complete, one of the world’s engineering marvels. The instrument will be able to conduct transformational science, breaking new ground in astronomical observations to investigate:

• Einstein’s theory of relativity to the limits;
• How the very first stars and galaxies formed just after the Big Bang;
• The mysterious force known as dark energy, the discovery of which gained the 2011 Nobel prize for physics;
• The powerful magnetic fields which permeate the cosmos;
• Whether we are alone in the universe.

The SKA will use thousands of dish antennas and up to a million dipole antennas that will enable astronomers to monitor the sky in unprecedented detail and survey the entire sky much faster than any system currently in existence. This will give the SKA unrivalled scope in observations, exceeding the image resolution quality of the Hubble Space Telescope. The SKA will also image huge areas of sky with an unprecedented level of sensitivity.

South Africa’s Karoo region and Western Australia’s Murchison Shire were chosen as co-hosting locations for many scientific and technical reasons, from the atmospherics above the desert sites, through to the radio quietness, which comes from being some of the most remote locations on Earth. South Africa’s Karoo semi desert will host the core of the high and mid frequency dishes, ultimately extending over the African continent. Australia’s Murchison Shire will host the low frequency antennas.

Is there any relevance to high energy physics and nuclear physics in the SKA? Pulsars are the obvious place to start exploring this, but other applications exist too, such as determining the constraints on dark matter, the origin of high energy cosmic rays and particle acceleration in extra galactic relativistic jets.