IUCAA is a partner in the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) with about 7% share in observing time. SALT offers various instruments for imaging and low to high-resolution spectroscopy. All researchers and Associates of IUCAA are encouraged to submit proposals to observe with SALT. Call for proposals are announced twice a year with Phase I (Phase II) deadlines usually in January (April) and August (October). Information about tools for proposal preparation can be found here and data reduction pipelines can be found here. Archival SALT data can be downloaded from here. Publications utilising SALT data are listed here.

  

  

A presentation on SALT and IUCAA’s involvement with it can be found here.

 

Researchers in IUCAA have been/are currently involved in several observing programmes with SALT, a few of which are listed below. Associates are welcome to contact the relevant IUCAA faculty if they or Ph.D. students associated with them are interested in conducting SALT programmes in the following fields.

 

Extragalactic Astronomy: Raghunathan Srianand, Rajeshwari Dutta:

• Redshifts and physical properties of high redshift star-forming galaxies
• Spatially resolved analysis of low redshift galaxies and mergers
• Search for galaxies associated with strong absorption systems
• Redshifts of high redshift radio-loud quasars
• Lyman alpha emission from halos around high redshift quasars
• Time variability of ultrafast outflows in quasars

  

SALT RSS multi-object spectroscopy of galaxies (Guha et al. 2022, MNRAS, 513, 3836)

 

SALT RSS 2D long-slit spectra of extended emission around a high redshift quasar (Shukla et al. 2021, MNRAS, 501, 5362)

 

Time variability of fast outflows in a quasar (Aromal et al. 2021, MNRAS, 504, 5975)

 

Stellar Astrophysics: Anupam Bhardwaj:

• Chemical abundance analysis of Cepheids and metallicity gradients in nearby galaxies
• Probing pulsations through phase-dependent evolution of stellar parameters
• Quantifying metallicity effects on luminosities of standard candles and distance scale
• Radial velocities surveys to probe binary Cepheid and RR Lyrae candidates

 

An example spectra of a Cepheid taken with SALT (PI: Bhardwaj).

 

Transient Astronomy: Chandreyee Maitra, Gulab C. Dewangan:

• Outbursts from X ray binaries, fast X ray transients, magnetars, novae
• Monitoring of AGN

Population studies of compact objects: Chandreyee Maitra:

• Identification and properties of compact objects in nearby galaxies
• Evolution of circumstellar disks and wind properties in high mass X ray binaries
• Periodic and aperiodic variability of compact objects