Speaker
Description
By the end of LOFAR 1.0 operations in the summer of 2024, the LOFAR Two-meter Sky Survey (LoTSS) had surveyed 85% of the Northern sky. The majority of the missing 15% of regions are at Galactic latitudes b<|20| degrees. However, a substantial fraction of the Milky Way was observed as part of the LoTSS, and will be part of data release three (DR-3), including two long contiguous segments between Galactic longitudes l=30-77 and l =123-180 degrees, as well as smaller regions around l=97-106, and l=190-209 degrees. We refer to these regions as the LoTSS Galactic Fields.
In this talk, I will present these fields and discuss their scientific potential for Galactic science. I will then showcase one science case in depth: that of Galactic supernova remnants (SNRs). I will show that these LoTSS data have the potential of altering our understanding of the low-energy electrons in SNRs as their low-frequency spectra deviate from classical power-law behavior. Moreover, they can address the “missing SNRs problem” with the discovery of tens of new sources in the survey regions.
