Title: The Square Kilometre Array 

Speaker: Jeff Wagg (SKA organisation, Manchester)  

Time & Place: Friday, 3:00pm, August 29th, Lecture Hall, 3rd floor  

Abstract: Building on the major scientific achievements of the current generation of cm and metre-wavelength telescopes, phase 1 of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA1) will be the next global radio astronomy observatory. It is currently being designed by more than 350 engineers and scientists from around the world, including China, with the aim of beginning early science operations in 2020. Along with FAST, SKA1 will conduct key tests of general relativity through surveys and timing of pulsars in our own galaxy, and beyond. It will answer fundamental questions related to the evolution of atomic Hydrogen in the Universe, from the present day back to the Cosmic Dawn, less than 200 million years after the Big Bang. I will give an overview of some of the science drivers for SKA1, along with a description of the planned telescopes and the sites that will host them.

Biog: Jeff Wagg is a project scientist at the SKA headquarters in Jodrell Bank, UK. He did his undergraduate degree in physics and astronomy at the University of Victoria before completing a PhD at INAOE (Mexico) and the Harvard-Smithsonian CfA (USA). He was a Max-Planck/NRAO Fellow at the Very Large Array operations center in Socorro, NM, before moving to Chile as an ESO Fellow working with the ALMA commissioning team. His final year of the ESO Fellowship was spent at the Cavendish Laboratory of Cambridge University.