Radio Transients, Stellar End Products, and SETI Working Group Report

摘要

This working group (WG) has identified the following projects as forefront science to be pursued with the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) and which drive specifications of the SKA. In particular, pulsars, transients, and some Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) activities require observing modes that differ markedly from those designed for imaging modes of sources that do not vary with time. Therefore, care must be taken in the conceptual and design phases of the SKA to ensure that science in these areas can be undertaken and optimized. As a notable historical example, we point out that the original discovery of pulsars involved an array optimized for detecting relatively fast (at that time) scintillations. By comparison, the Very Large Array (VLA) has not discovered any new pulsars, in part because its design has hampered the analysis of short timescale signals. Consequently, the vast majority of radio pulsar discoveries has been made with single-dish antennas. This should not be the case with the SKA.