Date: 2026-11-13
Time: 11 am
Venue: Room 1.35, Department of Physics and Astronomy, UWC and Zoom
Format: In-person hybrid (presenter in room)
Speaker: Dr. Kenda Knowles
Affiliation: University of the Western Cape (UWC)
Title: Investigating the Non-Thermal Components of Galaxy Clusters with MeerKAT
Abstract:
Galaxy clusters, the largest gravitationally bound structures in the Universe, intersect cosmological and astrophysical research topics. Over the past 30+ years, many massive galaxy clusters have been found to host Mpc-scale diffuse synchrotron emission, known as radio halos and relics. This emission traces relativistic particles and magnetic fields in the intracluster medium, probing non-thermal cluster physics that is hard to investigate at other wavelengths. In this talk I will present my work using MeerKAT to study this emission through two complementary surveys. The MeerKAT Galaxy Cluster Legacy Survey (MGCLS) consists of long-track L-band observations of 115 clusters. Its images have excellent surface brightness sensitivity, and its public legacy products support a wide range of science, from in-band spectral indices to Faraday rotation and HI. The MeerKAT Exploration of Relics, Giant Halos, and Extragalactic Radio Sources (MERGHERS) survey takes a statistical approach. It targets SZ-selected clusters from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope catalogues in complete tiers, built to trace how diffuse emission evolves with redshift and mass beyond the low-redshift, high-mass clusters that dominate current samples. I will present highlights from both surveys and discuss where this work is heading.
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Date: 2026-11-06
Speaker: Dr. Sukannya Bhattacharya
Affiliation: IFT Madrid, Madrid, Spain.
Title: Understanding the Primordial Universe through Gravitational Waves
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Date: 2026-10-30
Speaker: Dr. Kelebogile Gasealahwe
Affiliations:
[1] University of Cape Town, Cape Town;
[2] South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO), Cape Town.
Title: Stars and X-ray explosions | How do we get there?
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Date: 2026-10-23
Speaker: Prof. Romeel Dave
Affiliation: University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland.
Title: The Kiara Project: A New Suite of Galaxy Formation Simulations
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Date: 2026-10-16
Speaker: Prof. Eloy de Lera Acedo
Affiliation: University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England.
Title: Unveiling the Dark Ages and Cosmic Dawn with REACH and CosmoCube
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Date: 2026-10-09
Speaker: Prof. Ed Elson
Affiliation: University of the Western Cape, Cape Town.
Title: A Simple Neural-Network Bridge Between Galaxy Simulations and Surveys
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Date: 2026-10-02
Speaker: Dr. Tianyang Liu
Affiliation: University of the Western Cape, Cape Town.
Title: Point-Source Calibration Challenges in MeerKLASS UHF-Band HI Intensity Mapping
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Date: 2026-09-11
Speaker: Prof. Nico Orce
Affiliation: University of the Western Cape, Cape Town.
Title: Precise Shape Measurements of Benchmark Nuclei at CERN
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Date: 2026-09-04
Speaker: Prof. Robbie Lindsay
Affiliation: University of the Western Cape, Cape Town.
Title: The PAUL Underground Laboratory - History, status and future possibilities
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Date: 2026-08-28
Speaker: Ms. Munira Hoosain
Affiliations:
[1] University of Cape Town, Cape Town;
[2] South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO), Cape Town.
Title: Evolution of the cosmic neutral hydrogen density with LADUMA
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Date: 2026-08-21
Speaker: Dr. Gianni Bernardi
Affiliations:
[1] INAF-IRA, Bologna;
[2] Rhodes University, Makhanda.
Title: The burgeoning rise of the 21-cm forest
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Date: 2026-08-14
Speaker: Dr. Karin Fornazier
Affiliation: University of the Western Cape, Cape Town.
Title: Thirty Years of Critical Dialogues in Cosmology: From 1996 to 2026
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Date: 2026-06-05
Speaker: Prof. Simon Foreman
Affiliation: Arizona State University, USA.
Title: Status of 21cm intensity mapping with CHIME
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Date: 2026-05-29
Speaker: Prof. Smarajit Triambak
Affiliation: University of the Western Cape, Cape Town.
Title: Searches for new physics with large xenon detectors, related studies in nuclear structure and UWC's not so random walk towards a next-generation "underground" facility
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Date: 2026-05-15
Speaker: B.M. Mabakachaba
Affiliations:
[1] Tandetron Laboratory, iThemba LABS-National Research Foundation;
[2] University of the Western Cape, Cape Town.
Title: Isothermal Modelling and Performance Optimization of 1D VO2-Based Gas Sensors
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Date: 2026-05-08
Speaker: Prof. Michelle Lochner
Affiliation: University of the Western Cape, Cape Town.
Title: Scientific Discovery with Foundation Models
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Date: 2026-04-17
Speaker: Junaid Townsend
Affiliation: University of the Western Cape, Cape Town.
Title: Probing Cosmology with the MeerKAT Interferometer
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Date: 2026-03-27
Speaker: Jespere Nzobadila Ondze
Affiliation: University of the Western Cape, Cape Town.
Title: Searching for new physics with 136Xe neutrinoless double beta decay
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Date: 2026-03-20
Speaker: Prof. Malik Maaza
Affiliation: UNISA, Pretoria and iThemba LABS, NRF, South Africa.
Title: Room temperature Quantum mechanics peculiarities in nanoscaled systems
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Date: 2026-02-27
Speaker: Dr. Steven Murray
Affiliation: Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa.
Title: First Results from HERA Phase II
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Date: 2026-02-18
Speaker: Dr. Chenoa Tremblay
Affiliation: The SETI Institute, United States.
Title: Billions of Stars, One Question: Radio Astronomy and the Search for Life.
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Date: 2026-02-06
Speaker: Prof. Patrick Dorey
Affiliation: Department of Mathematical Sciences, Durham University, Durham, United Kingdom
Title: the ODE/IM correspondence
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Date: 2025-11-21
Speaker: Prof. André Ferrari
Affiliation: Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur, Nice, France
Title: Detection of Fast Radio Bursts using a hybrid neural architecture
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Date: 2025-11-07
Speaker: Geoff Murphy
Affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of the Western Cape (UWC)
Title: High-dimensional Bayesian modelling approaches for 21cm cosmology
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Date: 2025-10-31
Speaker: Dr Verlon Etsebeth
Affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of the Western Cape (UWC)
Title: Astronomaly: From Large-Scale Anomaly Detection to Targeted Discovery
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Date: 2025-10-17
Speaker: Bhivek Singh
Affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of the Western Cape (UWC)
Title: Unmasking Anomalies: The Puzzle of Second Class Currents in 22Na
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Date: 2025-10-10
Speaker: Prof. D.J. Pisano
Affiliation: Department of Astronomy, University of Cape Town (UCT), Cape Town, South Africa
Title: Probing the Magneto-Ionized Circumgalactic Medium of M31 with HI and Rotation Measures
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Date: 2025-10-03
Speaker: Daniel Johnson
Affiliation: Laboratoire Univers et Particules de Montpellier (LUPM), Université de Montpellier, Montpellier, France
Title: Strong lensing, cosmology, and the line of sight
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Date: 2025-08-29
Speaker: Mohamed Kamil
Affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of the Western Cape (UWC)
Title: From novae to neutrinos: Insights from neutron-removal reactions
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Date: 2025-07-18
Speaker: Dr Julien Larena
Affiliation: Laboratoire Univers et Particules de Montpellier (LUPM), Université de Montpellier, Montpellier, France
Title: Cosmology with Einstein rings; a path to a 6x2pt analysis
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Date: 2025-06-13
Speaker: Dr Aman Chokshi
Affiliation: McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Title: Towards an Epoch of Reionization Detection — Challenges in a Pre-SKA Era
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Date: 2025-06-11
Speaker: Dr Santiago Avila
Affiliation: Centro de Investigaciones Eneréticas Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT), Madrid, Spain
Title: Implications of cosmological expansion models from the final Dark Energy Survey BAO and SN data
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Date: 2025-05-30
Speaker: Prof. Andrei Albert Mesinger
Affiliation: Classe di scienze, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, Italy
Title: Status and future of 21-cm cosmology during the first billion years
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Date: 2025-05-23
Speaker: Prof. Roy Maartens
Affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of the Western Cape (UWC)
Title: Covariant Cosmography: a new perspective on H0 and the local Universe
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Date: 2025-04-25
Speaker: Dr Sthabile Kolwa
Affiliation: University of South Africa (UNISA), Pretoria, South Africa
Title: A MIGHTEE view of radio emission in faint AGN and star-forming galaxies
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Date: 2025-04-14
Speaker: Dr Chris Gordon
Affiliation: School of Physical and Chemical Sciences, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
Title: How Stars May Shred Axion Minihalos and What That Means for Dark Matter Searches