Abstract

We propose RAIN, a multi-day, in-person workshop to be held at the Paris Observatory in fall 2026, aimed at preparing the French radio-astronomy community for the upcoming SKAO Science Verification phase. Building on current SKAO pathfinder facilities, the workshop will cover the full chain from instrumentation and data acquisition to science-ready products, combining accessible scientific and technical talks with hands-on hackathons. With 30 to 50 participants, RAIN will strengthen low-frequency radio science in France and foster cross-community collaboration in the SKA era.

Scientific justification

Following the recent final approval by the French Parliament of the SKAO investment, and with the SKAO Science Verification phase expected to begin within the next two years, we propose a multi-day workshop on radio-astronomical instruments, data, and science, to be hosted at the Paris Observatory in fall 2026, with the goal of preparing the community for upcoming challenges.

The workshop will exploit the knowledge acquired by French astronomers working on SKAO pathfinders, such as NenuFAR, LOFAR-ERIC, MeerKAT, CHIME, and ASKAP. We will contribute to strengthening low-frequency radio science by extending the ongoing effort initiated with the SKA-France 2026 conference in Meudon, and by fostering networking across diverse radio-astronomy communities in support of the use and success of the SKAO.

The workshop, entitled RAIN (Radio Acquisition and Instrumentation to Next-generation Data), aims to attract a broad scientific audience in astronomy and to highlight the potential of next-generation radio observations to address fundamental questions ranging from cosmology and galactic dynamics to star formation, magnetism, and energetic phenomena in the Universe, such as Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs). Particular emphasis will be placed on building scientific bridges with other electromagnetic wavebands, such as the millimeter-wave window with ALMA and NOEMA, while introducing key concepts of radio interferometry, beamforming, and imaging. The program will guide participants along the path linking the sky to science-ready data.

This in-person-only workshop of approximately 30 to 50 participants will combine scientific and technical contributions at an accessible level, alongside a series of hands-on hackathons focused on selected data-processing pipelines developed in France. For selected science cases, we will provide example datasets from specific telescopes and propose targeted activities, such as beamforming and searches for FRBs. These exercises will highlight the scientific potential of the data, in particular in a multi-wavelength context, and will illustrate current challenges as well as future perspectives for data quality and usability in the SKA era.