Welcome!
Welcome to the issue 7 of the e-
MERLIN newsletter. We will be
publishing e-MERLIN-related
news and science highlights,
including calls for proposals,
adverts for summer schools and
links to e-MERLIN partners like
the EVN and ORP. If you would
like to contribute to the e-MERLIN
newsletter, please get in touch at:
emerlin.support@jb.man.ac.uk !
New insights on high-mass star
formation using masers
High-mass stars can produce masers which can be
used to trace the 3D structure of the disk-like accretion
flow. Methanol masers are excited closer to high-mass
protostars and are used to infer the location of the star
and study the circumstellar kinematics. However, the
distribution of observed Methanol masers (and water
masers) is often complex requiring VLBI to distinguish
between outflowing and inflowing components. !
Monitoring of both the water and methanol masers
using MERLIN and new e-MERLIN data combined with
VERA and JVN observations of the high-mass star
forming region G59.783+0.065 have shown changes in
the distribution of the masers. The variety of structures
and clusters of the observed masers provides evidence
for a bipolar outflow, inward motions produced at the
edge of the outflow and the infalling envelope and a
rotating disc-like structure. !
Read the full paper here (Nakamura et al. 2023,
MNRAS, Volume 526, Issue 1, 1000-1021)!
User Newsletter
Issue 7 16 October 2024!
Schematic of the outflows and inflows probed by
masers in G59.783+0.065
Students from Radboud
University enjoy a visit to JBO
and SKAO headquarters
Visits from Radboud
University and the
ALMA data school
We were delighted to have
visits by students from
Radboud University and the
ALMA data school in the last
few months. Members of the
operations team took the
groups on guided tours of the
observatory and gave talks on
the current research being
performed using e-MERLIN.
Conference season
sees e-MERLIN at
NAM, EVN Symposium
and ERIS
It has been a busy few months
for the e-MERLIN support team,
with conferences and meetings
across Europe. First, in July,
members of the e-MERLIN team
attended the National
Astronomy Meeting in Hull as
part of a combined JBCA stall
with the UKSKA regional centre
and ALMA ARC node. Members
of e-MERLIN also supported the
organisation of the SKA
pathfinders special session."
Then, at the start of September,
members of the e-MERLIN team
attended the EVN symposium in
Bonn, Germany to present some
of the latest e-MERLIN research
and collaborate with colleagues
all over Europe. (Continued…)!
!
A compilation study of the Brightest
Gamma Ray Burst of All Time
In 2022, the brightest Gamma Ray Burst (GRB) of all
time (affectionately known as the “BOAT”) was
observed across the electromagnetic spectrum, with
multiple observatories across the world contributing
data. At a redshift of 0.2, the jets launched during the
explosion and pointed towards Earth were sufficiently
powerful to ionise part of the atmosphere!!
This follow-up work using all the available data
including e-MERLIN has been able to model the multi-
wavelength light curve in exquisite detail to
understand the jet physics and its interaction with the
surrounding media. Several phenomenological models
were tested, and it was clear that it was only possible
to explain the light curve with three emitting
components. This is interpreted as a forward shock
where the jet propagates into the surrounding
medium, a reverse shock that propagates back
towards the object, and a third shock due to a cocoon
or wider, slower outflow.!
Read the full paper here (Rhodes et al. 2024, MNRAS,
Volume 533, Issue 4, pp.4435).!
Models of the afterglow of GRB 221009A
The NAM Stand (photo: Julia Healy)
www.e-merlin.ac.uk
e-MERLIN joins a new EU-funded
project for multi-messenger
astronomy: ACME
On the 16th and 17th of September 2024 the kick-off
meeting for the Astrophysics Centre for
Multimessenger studies in Europe (ACME) was held in
Paris. This EU-funded project is coordinated by
Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS)
and aims to realise an ambitious European-wide
optimisation of the accessibility and cohesion
between multiple leading astroparticle and astronomy
research infrastructures. The e-MERLIN/VLBI National
facility which the University of Manchester operates
on behalf of STFC, and expertise from the UK’s SKA
Regional Centre will be key part of this project,
offering access to instruments, data and expertise,
focused on the new science of multi-messenger
astrophysics.!
Included will be 40 world-class institutions from 15
countries, including Jodrell Bank Centre for
Astrophysics. ACME will bring together the
astroparticle and astronomy communities in a joint
effort to forge a basis for strengthened long-term
collaboration between these research infrastructures
irrespective of location and level-up access
opportunities across Europe and beyond.!
“ACME is an incredibly exciting opportunity. This
project will bring together a wide range of world-class
researchers and astronomical research infrastructure
spanning astroparticle and gravitational wave facilities
along the entire electromagnetic spectrum, with a
common focus to advance multi-messenger
astrophysics,” says Prof Rob Beswick who co-leads
ACME’s transnational access programme and the
University of Manchester’s involvement.!
Find out more about ACME, here.!
ACME launch photo in
Paris, September 2024
More recently, members of the
team returned from Granada,
Spain, after joining the team of
the European Radio
Interferometry School 2024,
helping to teach the next
generation of radio astronomers."
Announcements
EAVN Call for Proposals.
Deadline 1 November 2024.
Click here for further information!
EVN Call for Proposals.
Deadline 1 February 2025. Click
here for further information!
The JBCA ERIS team (photo:
Ann N’jeri)