HKIAA Colloquium: Pulsar Timing with the MeerKAT Radio Telescope

CYCP1, LG/F, Chong Yuet Ming Chemistry Building, The University of Hong Kong

June 18, 2026 (Thursday)
10:30 am – 11:30 am

Speaker

Professor Matthew BAILES

  • Swinburne University of Technology
  • Shaw Prize Laureate in Astronomy 2023

Abstract

The MeerKAT radio telescope offered a 7-fold increase in sensitivity over existing Southern hemisphere facilities and was awarded 5000h of time over five years to time over 1000 pulsars from 2019.
In this talk I will talk about recent highlights from the programme, including observations of the double pulsar, the thousand pulsar array, the globular cluster programme and the MeerKAT Pulsar Timing Array.

About the speaker

Professor Matthew Bailes is a pulsar enthusiast and helped launch the sub-field of Fast Radio Bursts when he was involved in the discovery of the Lorimer burst. He founded the Swinburne Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing in 1998, is the Director of OzGrav, the ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery and chair of the Gravitational Wave International Committee. His passion for public outreach has led to the development of novel software for astronomy public talks culminating in the creation of Swinburne’s Virtual Universe, a 100 m^2 3D immersive visualisation system.
 
 

Anyone interested is welcome to attend in person or via Zoom:

https://hku.zoom.us/j/96472971072?pwd=uoTCtn45823IaLEyIkyrQvvZPjyt0C.1

Meeting ID: 964 7297 1072  Password: 410133