Speaker
Description
The MeerKAT Exploration of Relics, Giant Halos, and Extragalactic Radio Sources (MERGHERS) survey is targeting a homogeneously selected sample of SZ-detected galaxy clusters with the aim of probing the cosmic and mass evolution of diffuse cluster radio emission. Almost all statistical cluster samples studied for diffuse radio emission are restricted to low-redshift, high-mass clusters due to historical telescope sensitivity limitations. MERGHERS is designed in mass-complete tiers, to build up to a large statistically significant cluster sample across wide redshift and mass ranges, as yet unprobed at mid-MHz and GHz ranges. The initial tier of the MERGHERS project focuses on mid-to-high redshift clusters (0.4 < z < 0.6) from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope DR5 cluster catalogue, providing the first mass-selected statistical sample in this redshift range. I will present the MERGHERS survey and some early results, and discuss the critical multiwavelength synergies required to classify detected diffuse emission, probe the non-thermal physics, and study the extragalactic radio sources in the fields.
