EWASS 2015 Special Session: SKA

With its superb sensitivity, planned to be about two orders of magnitude better than existing radio astronomical facilities, SKA will be an excellent deep and wide survey machine for astronomical objects from the local to the most distant universe up to redshifts larger than 10. This will allow for unprecedented cosmological studies up to the Epoch or Re-ionization, the detection of thousands of new pulsar systems to test the theory of general relativity with precisions far better than 1%, studies of the first AGN and galaxies, and mapping the magnetic field structure from the larger scales in the universe down to the relevant turbulent scales of galaxies in the local vicinity. The aim of the workshop will be to present and discuss the transformational scientific output of future SKA surveys and their synergies with current complementary multi-spectral-range facilities (e.g. ALMA, SDSS, Chandra) and other future projects like the LSST, Euclid, or eROSITA. We should note that SKA is an instrument for all astronomers, not only for radioastronomers. Using synoptic observations from SKA, LSST, and Euclid, it will be possible to perform large scale structure and very high redshift cosmology (up to z~10 and beyond) studies. In the field of Galaxy Evolution, SKA will accurately determine the Star Formation history over cosmic time while LSST will provide redshifts and stellar masses. Moreover, it will be possible to trace the pathway from neutral gas (HI with SKA), to molecular gas (with ALMA) to star formation (with SKA radio continuum). In fact, radio continuum surveys with SKA1 will be probing galaxies with Star Formation Rates of up to 10 solar masses per year up to redshifts of around 3-4. This Special Session will include review talks, oral contributions (there will be a formal call for participation) and a final discussion forum during the last session. This will be an excellent opportunity to let the multi-spectral-range European astronomical community know about the transformational science that SKA is planned to deliver.

More information: http://eas.unige.ch/EWASS2015/session.jsp?id=Sp21