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Image credit: G. Heald
Magnetic fields play a fundamental role in driving energetic phenomena throughout the cosmos — from star-forming regions and stellar remnants to entire galaxies, including our own Milky Way, and even the vast large-scale structures of the Universe. Radio astronomy offers the most powerful tools for exploring cosmic magnetism, particularly through the analysis of polarized synchrotron emission and its modification via Faraday rotation. The Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO), with its unprecedented sensitivity, resolution, and broad frequency range, is set to revolutionize our understanding of magnetic fields.
In our Cosmic Magnetism challenge, participants are tasked with identifying sources in simulated SKA polarization datasets and generating a catalogue of detections. This catalogue will include source properties relevant for magentism studies, such as polarized intensity and the intrinsic polarization angle.
To evaluate submissions, our scoring system — or figure of merit — will compare each submitted catalogue to the ground-truth data embedded in the simulations. The score will be based on metrics such as completeness, reliability, and the accuracy of the reported source properties. Spanning a period of six months (TB), the challenge is designed to be iterative, encouraging teams to leverage their assigned computing resources fully. While participants will receive regular feedback on their performance, comparative standings on the Leaderboard will only be revealed once the challenge concludes.
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