Speaker
Description
I will present details of the first detection of cosmological signal using HI intensity mapping with a multi-dish array. For this we used the 64 dish MeerKAT telescope, a pathfinder for the Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO), operating in single-dish mode, whereby the array is used as a collection of scanning auto-correlation dishes rather than as an interferometer. The detection is achieved in cross-correlation with overlapping galaxies from the WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey. The intensity mapping data was collected from 10.5 hours of pilot observations using MeerKAT's L-band over six nights, covering ~200deg^2 in the 11hr field of WiggleZ. We used data in the frequency range 971-1023 MHZ (0.39 < z < 0.46 in redshift), where impact from RFI is most minimal. This detection is the first evidence of its kind to suggest a multi-dish array operating in single-dish mode can probe cosmological signals. This marks an important milestone in the roadmap for the large scale structure science case with the full SKAO.
