The 5th SKA summer school will be held during August 12 and 16, 2019 at the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory (SHAO). This summer school will select 50 participants at various levels, including amongst undergraduates, graduate students and junior researchers all over China. This event is supported by the SKA International Organisation (SKAO), the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) of China, the SKA China Office, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).
The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) will be the largest radio telescope in the world aimed at exploring the Universe. It is also the biggest aperture synthesis radio telescope in the world once completed, which is more powerful than all currently existing radio telescopes. More than 10 countries worldwide are currently involved in the SKA construction and scientific operation. China is one of the founding counties of the SKA project in 1990s, and one of the countries who signed the Treaty for the establishment of the SKA Observatory on March 12, 2019. The Chinese astronomy community has a strong responsibility to support and develop this big global scientific project, in addition to the training and education of next-generation astronomers. With the support of the MOST, the SKA China Office, and the CAS, a series of SKA summer schools have been conducted since 2013. The themes are closely related to the SKA key science directions, including the epoch of re-ionization (EoR) and cosmic dawn, pulsar, neutral hydrogen and cosmology, SKA low frequency sciences, etc.
Transient studies are an important science direction of the SKA. Recent years have witnessed a rapid increase in transient studies, especially driven by the discovery of the first neutron star-neutron star merger which opened the multi-messenger observation (electromagnetic and gravitational wave) era. In 2018 and 2019, the SKA pathfinders, ASKAP and CHIME, have resulted in the detection of more than 200 new fast radio bursts (FRBs), making them FRB machines. Since SKA has a wide field-of-view, multiple simultaneous beams, high sensitivity, high time/frequency resolution, and fast survey capability, it will be a powerful tool to search radio transients and conduct statistical research on their physical properties. SKA will not only trace the existing fields like GW-EMs, gamma-ray bursts, supernova explosions, and black hole tide disruption events (TDEs), but also open up incredible new science avenues in astrophysics. For these reasons, the 5th Chinese SKA summer school will be focused on the topic of "Searching and Studies of Radio Transients".
This summer school will combine lectures and practical data processing. The data obtained from the SKA precursor and pathfinder telescopes will be used to demonstrate the transient search and data processing method. The goal is to offer an opportunity for participants to acquire a basic understanding of SKA transient sciences, as a preparation for the future research on transients with the flush of SKA data.
Summer School Confirmed Plans (keep updating):
August 12 - 13: Lectures in Chinese
August 11 4pm: registration
August 12 Morning (Di Li, NAOC): radio astronomy and interferometer
Morning (Tao An, SHAO): High resolution observation of radio transients
August 12 Afternoon (Xuefeng Wu, PMO): The modelings of fast radio bursts, gamma-ray bursts and gravitational wave electromagnetic counterparts
August 13 Morning (Xiaofeng Wang, THU): Observation and theories of supernovae, and large field time domain astronomy
August 13 Afternoon (Binbin Zhang, NJU): Observation and data reduction of gamma-ray bursts / gravitational wave electromagnetic counterparts
Afternoon (Haoyang Ye, U. of Cambridge): Wide field imaging and source extraction
August 12 - 13 Evening (Zhongli Zhang, SHAO): Software installation
August 14 - 15: Lectures in English
August 14 (Evan Keane, SKAO): Fast radio bursts, and tutorials
August 15 (Andrew Zic, Uni. Sydney): Flaring stars
Andrew Zic (Sydney), Baoqiang Lao (SHAO): tutorials
August 15 (Dougal Dobie, Uni. Sydney): Radio follow-up of gravitational wave events
Dougal Dobie (Sydney), Baoqiang Lao (SHAO): tutorials
August 16：Data competition in the morning, excursion to sheshan telescope and SKA science and compute laboratory in the afternoon
Tan An, Quan Guo, Shaoguang Guo (SHAO): introduction of China SKA data center prototype
Application Qualification:
1、The participants must be from Astronomy, Physics or closely related majors. Students in the 3rd and 4th year of undergraduates and all-grade masters are preferred. Junior researchers must have a working experience less than 3 years.
2、As the lectures on the 3rd and 4th days will be in English, students should be fluent in English communication. Those that have passed CET-6, or have a TOEFL score above 90, or IELTS score above 6.5 will be given priority.
3、We encourage cooperation between participants and lecturers. Those who have published scientific papers or possess related research experiences will be given priority.
The fee:
No registration fee is required.
Moreover, we will sponsor transportation (train ticket) and accommodation of a few selected undergraduate and master students based on their performance. Other participants will pay by themselves. Junior researchers should cover all expenses on their own.
Deadline：registration online by July 5th, 2019.
For undergraduate and master students who apply for the sponsorship, a resume is required at the time of registration (check qualification above).
For more updated information please follow the website of SKA group of Shanghai Astronomical Observatory: http://202.127.29.4/CRATIV/zh-cn/home.html
Important dates：
Selected participants will receive a confirmation email by July 15th, 2019 (No notification for others).
Contact us：
Please register and send your resume to
Prof. Zhongli Zhang （email: zzl@shao.ac.cn）
LOC: Weijia Lv (email: luweijia@shao.ac.cn)
请大家注意，不要相信邮件或者电话预订旅馆，很有可能是诈骗邮件。
