Cosmology with SKA Radio Continuum Surveys

Abstract

Radio continuum surveys have, in the past, been of restricted use in cosmology. Most studies have concentrated on cross-correlations with the cosmic microwave background to detect the integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect, due to the large sky areas that can be surveyed. As we move into the SKA era, radio continuum surveys will have sufficient source density and sky area to play a major role in cosmology on the largest scales. In this chapter we summarise the experiments that can be carried out with the SKA as it is built up through the coming decade. We show that the SKA can play a unique role in constraining the non-Gaussianity parameter to σ_(fNL) ~1, and provide a unique handle on the systematics that inhibit weak lensing surveys. The SKA will also provide the necessary data to test the isotropy of the Universe at redshifts of order unity and thus evaluate the robustness of the cosmological principle. Thus, SKA continuum surveys will turn radio observations into a central probe of cosmological research in the coming decades.

Additional Information

© 2015 owned by the author(s) under the term of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. Published on: 2015 May 29. MJJ and MGS acknowledges support by the South African Square Kilometre Array Project, the South African National Research Foundation. MGS also acknowledges support from FCT grant PTDC/FIS-AST/2194/2012.

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Published - AASKA14_018.pdf

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