Radio Astronomy

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There are many beautiful pictures of the night sky. However, these images typically fail to convey two fundamental aspects of the cosmos: almost all the normal matter in the Universe is magnetic, and the Universe is changing and dynamic. These two usually hidden dimensions are key to understanding fundamental processes taking place in astrophysics, including the cycles through which stars and galaxies return matter and energy to interstellar and intergalactic space, and the varied and dramatic ways in which stars end their lives. Professor Bryan Gaensler plans to transform our understanding of the magnetic and changing Universe. He will apply innovative tools and algorithms to revolutionary new wide-field surveys using the VLA, CHIME, ASKAP and CHORD radio telescopes, with two objectives:1. To explain how the cosmos became magnetic, and how this magnetism has evolved through to the present day. Specifically, Gaensler's goals are to determine the origin of cosmic magnetism, to understand how this magnetism has not only survived but become stronger and more organized over billions of years of cosmic time, and to measure the precise magnetic properties of astronomical objects throughout the Universe.2. To produce large samples of poorly understood time-dependent phenomena, and reveal the physical processes probed by transient and explosive events throughout the cosmos. Gaensler will use explosions and other rapidly varying objects to study extreme physics and conditions that cannot be reproduced in any terrestrial laboratory, to reveal both previously unrecognized phases of evolution in otherwise familiar objects, and to discover entirely new populations and phenomena. Furthermore, Gaensler will use transient events as superb probes of otherwise unmeasurable aspects of the Universe's composition and evolution.Gaensler's plans are compelling on their own, but also serve as a crucial pathfinding effort for a future generation of even more ambitious experiments with the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). The SKA will offer an order-of-magnitude leap in sensitivity, frequency coverage and survey speed, and the work proposed here will be vital input into the design and feasibility of major programs on magnetism and time-domain science on the SKA. The coming decades will be an exciting time, in which Gaensler is positioned to lead fundamental work on the origin of magnetism in the Universe, and on the extreme physics that drives the changing sky.