TY - JOUR

T1 - The MPIfR-MeerKAT Galactic Plane Survey

T2 - I. System set-up and early results

AU - Padmanabh, P. V.

AU - Barr, E. D.

AU - Sridhar, Sripathi

AU - Rugel, M. R.

AU - Damas-Segovia, A.

AU - Jacob, A. M.

AU - Balakrishnan, V.

AU - Berezina, M.

AU - Bernadich, M. C.

AU - Brunthaler, A.

AU - Champion, D. J.

AU - Freire, P. C.C.

AU - Khan, S.

AU - Klöckner, H. R.

AU - Kramer, M.

AU - Ma, Y. K.

AU - Mao, S. A.

AU - Men, Y. P.

AU - Menten, K. M.

AU - Sengupta, S.

AU - Venkatraman Krishnan, V.

AU - Wucknitz, O.

AU - Wyrowski, F.

AU - Bezuidenhout, M. C.

AU - Buchner, S.

AU - Burgay, M.

AU - Chen, W.

AU - Clark, C. J.

AU - Künkel, L.

AU - Nieder, L.

AU - Stappers, B.

AU - Legodi, L. S.

AU - Nyamai, M. M.

N1 - Funding Information: The MeerKAT telescope is operated by the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory, which is a facility of the National Research Foundation, an agency of the Department of Science and Innovation. SARAO acknowledges the ongoing advice and calibration of GPS systems by the National Metrology Institute of South Africa (NMISA) and the time space reference systems department of the Paris Observatory. This work has made use of the ‘MPIfR S-band receiver system’ designed, constructed, and maintained by funding of the MPI für Radioastronomy and the Max Planck Society. The authors acknowledge colleagues, engineers, and scientists at SARAO for their tremendous help in installing and commissioning the S-band system. We are also in particular grateful to all MPIfR engineers and technicians responsible for developing, building, and installing the S-band system. Observations used the FBFUSE and APSUSE computing clusters for data acquisition, storage, and analysis. These clusters were funded and installed by the Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie (MPIfR) and the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft. The authors acknowledge continuing valuable support from the Max Planck Society. We thank the referee for valuable comments which helped improve the clarity of the paper. MRR is a Jansky Fellow of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. AMJ acknowledges support from USRA through a grant for SOFIA Program 08_0038. MBe acknowledges support from the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) D-MeerKAT award 05A17VH3 (Verbundprojekt D-MeerKAT). MBu acknowledges support through the research grant ‘iPeska’ (PI: Andrea Possenti) funded under the INAF national call Prin-SKA/CTA approved with the Presidential Decree 70/2016. MMN acknowledges support in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. NSF PHY-1748958.

PY - 2023/9

Y1 - 2023/9

N2 - Galactic plane radio surveys play a key role in improving our understanding of a wide range of astrophysical phenomena. Performing such a survey using the latest interferometric telescopes produces large data rates necessitating a shift towards fully or quasi-real-time data analysis with data being stored for only the time required to process them. We present here the overview and set-up for the 3000-h Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie (MPIfR)-MeerKAT Galactic Plane Survey (MMGPS). The survey is unique by operating in a commensal mode, addressing key science objectives of the survey including the discovery of new pulsars and transients and studies of Galactic magnetism, the interstellar medium and star formation rates. We explain the strategy coupled with the necessary hardware and software infrastructure needed for data reduction in the imaging, spectral, and time domains. We have so far discovered 78 new pulsars including 17 confirmed binary systems of which two are potential double neutron star systems. We have also developed an imaging pipeline sensitive to the order of a few tens of micro-Jansky () with a spatial resolution of a few arcseconds. Further science operations with an in-house built S-band receiver operating between 1.7 and 3.5 GHz are about to commence. Early spectral line commissioning observations conducted at S-band, targeting transitions of the key molecular gas tracer CH at 3.3 GHz already illustrate the spectroscopic capabilities of this instrument. These results lay a strong foundation for future surveys with telescopes like the Square Kilometre Array (SKA).

AB - Galactic plane radio surveys play a key role in improving our understanding of a wide range of astrophysical phenomena. Performing such a survey using the latest interferometric telescopes produces large data rates necessitating a shift towards fully or quasi-real-time data analysis with data being stored for only the time required to process them. We present here the overview and set-up for the 3000-h Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie (MPIfR)-MeerKAT Galactic Plane Survey (MMGPS). The survey is unique by operating in a commensal mode, addressing key science objectives of the survey including the discovery of new pulsars and transients and studies of Galactic magnetism, the interstellar medium and star formation rates. We explain the strategy coupled with the necessary hardware and software infrastructure needed for data reduction in the imaging, spectral, and time domains. We have so far discovered 78 new pulsars including 17 confirmed binary systems of which two are potential double neutron star systems. We have also developed an imaging pipeline sensitive to the order of a few tens of micro-Jansky () with a spatial resolution of a few arcseconds. Further science operations with an in-house built S-band receiver operating between 1.7 and 3.5 GHz are about to commence. Early spectral line commissioning observations conducted at S-band, targeting transitions of the key molecular gas tracer CH at 3.3 GHz already illustrate the spectroscopic capabilities of this instrument. These results lay a strong foundation for future surveys with telescopes like the Square Kilometre Array (SKA).

KW - galaxies: magnetic fields

KW - ISM: molecules

KW - pulsars: general

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85165974983&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.48550/arXiv.2303.09231

DO - 10.48550/arXiv.2303.09231

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85165974983

VL - 524

SP - 1291

EP - 1315

JO - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

JF - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

SN - 0035-8711

IS - 1

ER -