WALLABY – an SKA Pathfinder H i survey

• DOI: 10.1007/s10509-020-03831-4
• Publication Date: 2020-07-13T12:07:27Z
• Authors: Bärbel S. Koribalski; L. Staveley-Smith; T. Westmeier; P. Serra; K. Spekkens; O. I. Wong; K. Lee-Waddell; C. D. P. Lagos; D. Obreschkow; E. V. Ryan-Weber; M. Zwaan; V. Kilborn; G. Bekiaris; K. Bekki; F. Bigiel; A. Boselli; A. Bosma; B. Catinella; G. Chauhan; M. E. Cluver; M. Colless; H. M. Courtois; R. A. Crain; W. J. G. de Blok; H. Dénes; A. R. Duffy; A. Elagali; C. J. Fluke; B.-Q. For; G. Heald; P. A. Henning; K. M. Hess; B. W. Holwerda; C. Howlett; T. Jarrett; D. H. Jones; M. G. Jones; G. I. G. Józsa; R. Jurek; E. Jütte; P. Kamphuis; I. Karachentsev; J. Kerp; D. Kleiner; R. C. Kraan-Korteweg; Á. R. López-Sánchez; J. Madrid; M. Meyer; J. Mould; C. Murugeshan; R. P. Norris; S.-H. Oh; T. A. Oosterloo; A. Popping; M. Putman; T. N. Reynolds; J. Rhee; A. S. G. Robotham; S. Ryder; A. C. Schröder; Li Shao; A. R. H. Stevens; E. N. Taylor; J. M. van der Hulst; L. Verdes-Montenegro; B. P. Wakker; J. Wang; M. Whiting; B. Winkel; C. Wolf
• Keywords: Pathfinder

The Widefield ASKAP L-band Legacy All-sky Blind surveY (WALLABY) is a next-generation survey of neutral hydrogen (HI) in the Local Universe. It uses the widefield, high-resolution capability of the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), a radio interferometer consisting of 36 x 12-m dishes equipped with Phased-Array Feeds (PAFs), located in an extremely radio-quiet zone in Western Australia. WALLABY aims to survey three-quarters of the sky (-90 degr < Dec < +30 degr) to a redshift of z < 0.26, and generate spectral line image cubes at ~30 arcsec resolution and ~1.6 mJy/beam per 4 km/s channel sensitivity. ASKAP's instantaneous field of view at 1.4 GHz, delivered by the PAF's 36 beams, is about 30 sq deg. At an integrated signal-to-noise ratio of five, WALLABY is expected to detect over half a million galaxies with a mean redshift of z ~ 0.05 (~200 Mpc). The scientific goals of WALLABY include: (a) a census of gas-rich galaxies in the vicinity of the Local Group; (b) a study of the HI properties of galaxies, groups and clusters, in particular the influence of the environment on galaxy evolution; and (c) the refinement of cosmological parameters using the spatial and redshift distribution of low-bias gas-rich galaxies. For context we provide an overview of previous large-scale HI surveys. Combined with existing and new multi-wavelength sky surveys, WALLABY will enable an exciting new generation of panchromatic studies of the Local Universe. - First results from the WALLABY pilot survey are revealed, with initial data products publicly available in the CSIRO ASKAP Science Data Archive (CASDA).<br/>Accepted for publication in ApSS (38 pages, 14 figures), see also https://www.atnf.csiro.au/research/WALLABY/ - Contact email: [e-mail]<br/>