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The radio window on the magnetic cosmic web

Date: 
Thursday, 16 March, 2017 - 11:30
Location: 
Bât. 121, salle 123
Speaker(s): 
F. Vazza (IRA, Bologne, Italie)

On large scales cosmic matter is distributed in a web consistent of clusters, filaments, walls and voids. While the dark-matter skeleton of the cosmic web is closely traced by galaxies and galaxy clusters, the large-scale gaseous distribution is more hardly detected. In particular, the warm-hot intergalactic component (T~10^5-10^7K) where nearly half of the "missing" cosmic baryons should be located, has yet to be firmly detected. This situation may change within the next decade, thanks to the new generation of telescopes that will soon survey the radio sky: LOFAR, MWA, Meerkat, ASKAP and the Square Kilometer Array. Non-thermal components, relativistic particles and magnetic fields are thought to have a spatial distribution that is broader than that of thermal baryons. Based on advanced cosmological simulations of extragalactic magnetic fields, I will discuss the capabilities of the new generation of radio telescopes in detecting the synchrotron emission from the cosmic web. Detecting the very elusive and large-scale signal from the cosmic web will also enable us to better understand the origin of extragalactic magnetic fields, which still is an astrophysical puzzle.

 
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