Physical Properties of the Brightest Radio Galaxies in the MeerKAT-Herschel Protocluster Fields

Project Description: 

High-redshift protoclusters consisting of dusty starbursts are thought to host progenitors of modern galaxies and thus play an important role in galaxy evolution. Their dusty nature makes them bright in the FIR/submm but difficult to find in optical/NIR surveys. Radio observations are an excellent way to study these dusty starbursts, as dust is transparent in the radio and there is a tight correlation between the FIR and radio emission of a galaxy. Our team conducted MeerKAT 1.28 GHz radio imaging observations of three Herschel candidate proto-clusters, with a synthesised beam size of 7.5’’ by 6.6’’ and a central thermal noise down to 4.35mciroJy/beam, to establish the reality of candidates for these important galaxy progenitors. The results of that study were presented by Ding, Clements, Leeuw et. al 2024. Here we propose an Honours thesis project that will build on that work by studying, not only the faint galaxies that are in over-dense regions and make up the proto-clusters that are possible progenitors of modern-day clusters, but the brightest radio galaxies in those MeerKAT-Herschel proto-cluster fields. This work will determine their physical properties at multi-wavebands of interest. The reduced MeerKAT as well as auxiliary data are in hand, to readily enable the student to start from the basics such as source extraction, cross matching and if advanced determine the galaxies physical properties, such as their morphologies and photo-redshifts and from that luminosities and sizes, and interpret those in the context of related evolutionary studies in literature where possible, while definitely learning key science and research skills using MeerKAT data(UCT)

Supervisor

University of the Western Cape (UWC)

Co-Supervisor