Supplement to the Open Journal of Astrophysics – “Pulsar Science with the SKAO”

It’s been a busy day at the Open Journal of Astrophysics as we’ve published 12 related papers in the form of our first ever Supplement; officially it is Vol. 8 Supplement Issue 1. The idea of a Supplement is to publish a set of related papers together. I imagine it might be of interest for publishing conference proceedings, etc.

The topic of this Supplement is Pulsar Science with the Square Kilometre Array Observatory and it includes updates to the Science Case for the SKAO, the previous version of which is 10 years old. All the papers are indendependently peer-reviewed, which took some organizing and a lot of time because many potential referees are themselves members of the SKA Pulsar Science Working Group! Anyway, the final versions of all the papers hit the arXiv this morning so I published them all today.

Rather than include all 12 papers in tomorrow’s Saturday update I decided just to show the overlay for the overview of the special issue, which is here:

The following paragraph describes the content of the supplement and includes links to the other 11 papers in the issue.

The large instantaneous sensitivity, a wide frequency coverage and flexible observation modes with large number of beams in the sky are the main features of the upcoming SKA observatory’s two telescopes, the SKA-Low and the SKA-Mid, which are located on two different continents. Owing to these capabilities, the SKAO telescopes are going to be a game-changer for radio astronomy in general and pulsar astronomy in particular. The eleven articles in this special issue on pulsar science with the SKA Observatory describe its impact on different areas of pulsar science. Phase 1 of the rollout of the SKAO telescope is likely to double the known pulsar population in new surveys described in the first three papers (Keane et al. 2025Abbate et al. 2025Bagchi et al. 2025). These new discoveries will improve our understanding of the dynamics, evolution and gas content of globular clusters and the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way galaxy apart from increasing the samples for each of different kinds of radio emitting neutron stars (Levin et al. 2025). The larger population sample will enhance our understanding of the magneto-ionic interstellar medium (Tiburzi et al. 2025Xu et al. 2025), the pulsar magnetosphere (Oswald et al. 2025) and pulsar wind nebulae (Gelfand et al. 2025). Moreover, the discovery of exotic neutron star systems will test gravity theory ever more stringently (Krishnan et al. 2025) and will probe fundamental physics at sub-atomic level (Basu et al. 2025). Finally, this enhanced sample is likely to make the sky portrait sharper in nano-Hertz gravitational waves impacting on our understanding of the Universe in a fundamental way (Shannon et al. 2025). In summary, the papers in this special issue describe the way the upcoming SKA Observatory’s telescopes address fundamental physics through the study of pulsars and gravitational waves.

#DiamondOpenAccessPublishing #OpenAccessPublishing #OpenJournalOfAstrophysics #PulsarScience #pulsars #SKAO #SquareKilometreArray #SquareKilometreArrayObservatory #TheOpenJournalOfAstrophysics

This is my second migration on Mastodon, so I think an Introduction might be in order. I'm moving in to this account (that had lived independently, to test some of Mathstodon features) after astrodon.social is being sunset. Hope that Astrodon as a concept still lives!

I currently work in Systems Engineering for radio telescopes (in particular, the ALMA radio interferometer). I’ve also worked in software development and management for the SKAO observatory, and for the archive department at ESO. Of course, I'm also very interested in math (specially that having to do with system theory), so I'll try to get a bit stronger there.

Glad to see you all around!

#Introduction #SystemsEngineering #SystemTheory #RadioTelescopes #ALMA #AtacamaLargeMillimeterArray #AtacamaLargeMillimeterSubmillimeterArray #SKAO #SquareKilometreArrayObservatory #ESO #EuropeanSouthernObservatory #Astrodon

The DIrector General positions for the Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO) and the European Southern Observatory (ESO) are open right now!

SKAO DG: https://recruitment.skao.int/vacancy/directorgeneral-578885.html

ESO DG: https://recruitment.eso.org/jobs/2024_0086

#DirectorGeneral #EuropeanSouthernObservatory #SquareKilometreArrayObservatory #ESO #SKAO #DG #FediJobs

Director-General - SKA Observatory

This book has triggered some memories on the early involvement of Spain in the SKA development which I documented on LinkedIn, but I will write a thread here about them.

1/11

#SKAO #SKA #SquareKilometreArray #SquareKilometreArrayOrganisation #SquareKilometreArrayObservatory #SPDO #ISPO #RadioAstronomy #HistoryBook #LargeScaleResearchInfrastructures #Spain #SpanishScienceIndustry #ScienceIndustry
https://astrodon.social/@juandesant/112696949499330270

Dr. Juande Santander-Vela (@juandesant@astrodon.social)

Great book (PDF & EPUB) if you have any interest in the SKA's early history. Really good job from Richard Schilizzi, Ron Ekers, Peter Dewdney, and Phil Crosby on compiling a lot of evidence on the journey to establish the SKA, with what went well, and not so well, with lots of detail and notes. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-51374-9 #SKAO #SKA #SquareKilometreArray #SquareKilometreArrayOrganisation #SquareKilometreArrayObservatory #SPDO #ISPO #RadioAstronomy #HistoryBook #LargeScaleResearchInfrastructures

Astrodon - The Astro Community

Great book (PDF & EPUB) if you have any interest in the SKA's early history. Really good job from Richard Schilizzi, Ron Ekers, Peter Dewdney, and Phil Crosby on compiling a lot of evidence on the journey to establish the SKA, with what went well, and not so well, with lots of detail and notes.

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-51374-9

#SKAO #SKA #SquareKilometreArray #SquareKilometreArrayOrganisation #SquareKilometreArrayObservatory #SPDO #ISPO #RadioAstronomy #HistoryBook #LargeScaleResearchInfrastructures

The Square Kilometre Array

This book describes the first two decades of the development the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) which will be the most sensitive radio telescope ever built.

SpringerLink

@timbray thanks! Even having worked on some of the timing requirements for the Square Kilometre Array Observatory with respect to software, I did not know a couple of things here… but I’m very glad I was well aware of most of the things in the talk!

#SKAO #SquareKilometreArrayObservatory #Timing #UTC #TAI #BIPM

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Toot.Cat

On the internet, everyone knows you're a cat — and that's totally okay.

Mastodon hosted on toot.cat
Hey there, time for an introduction! I’m new to CalcKey (and CalcKey.social in particular), but not that new to the Fediverse, so this will not be my main profile for some time, but I’ll try to see if it can become that.

I’m half-astronomer, half-engineer, although the engineering part has been gaining more relevance with time.

I have worked for several observatories, among them the European Southern Observatory, the Square Kilometre Array Observatory, and since June 2022 the Joint ALMA Observatory.

The Joint ALMA Observatory just went through its 10th anniversary, and is ready now for its major overhaul: the Wideband Sensitivity Upgrade, which will change all the signal chain, including correlation and data processing, to get an huge multiple in speed gains for most projects, and at least a 4 times gain for most.

My role is to supervise the Systems Engineering efforts for all relevant subprojects, to make sure that a successful observatory upgrade is delivered which provides a lot of value to our community.

See you around!

ps. As my profile indicates, most of my activity will, anyway, happen at
@juandesant. At least, for the time being!

#Introduction #ALMA #AtacamaLargeMillimeterArray #AtacamaLargeMillimeterSubmillimeterArray
#JAO #JointAlmaObservatory
#WSU #WidebandSensitivityUpgrade #ESO #EuropeanSouthernObservatory #SKAO #SquareKilometreArrayObservatory #SystemEngineering #SystemsEngineering #Fediverse #Calckey
Hey there, time for an introduction! I’m new to CalcKey (and CalcKey.social in particular), but not that new to the Fediverse, so this will not be my main profile for some time, but I’ll try to see if it can become that.

I’m half-astronomer, half-engineer, although the engineering part has been gaining more relevance with time.

I have worked for several observatories, among them the European Southern Observatory, the Square Kilometre Array Observatory, and since June 2022 the Joint ALMA Observatory.

The Joint ALMA Observatory just went through its 10th anniversary, and is ready now for its major overhaul: the Wideband Sensitivity Upgrade, which will change all the signal chain, including correlation and data processing, to get an huge multiple in speed gains for most projects, and at least a 4 times gain for most.

My role is to supervise the Systems Engineering efforts for all relevant subprojects, to make sure that a successful observatory upgrade is delivered which provides a lot of value to our community.

See you around!

ps. As my profile indicates, most of my activity will, anyway, happen at
@juandesant. At least, for the time being!

#Introduction #ALMA #AtacamaLargeMillimeterArray #AtacamaLargeMillimeterSubmillimeterArray
#JAO #JointAlmaObservatory
#WSU #WidebandSensitivityUpgrade #ESO #EuropeanSouthernObservatory #SKAO #SquareKilometreArrayObservatory #SystemEngineering #SystemsEngineering #Fediverse #Calckey

#SKA #Observatory marks a momentous milestone with the formal start of construction at #telescope sites in South Africa and Australia.

🔗 https://www.skao.int/en/explore/construction-journey

We at #Cosylab are excited to be part of the project and work on the SKA telescopes’ observation monitor and controls software.

#SKAO #SKAObservatory #SquareKilometreArray #SquareKilometreArrayObservatory #astronomy

The construction journey | SKAO