Exploring the uncharted Vela Supercluster: Insights from MeerKAT HI Surveys

Our research is dedicated to shedding light on the uncharted territories within the Zone of Avoidance (ZOA), a portion of the sky obscured by our Milky Way's dust and stars. This region is known to partially conceals numerous dynamically important structures in the nearby Universe. Utilizing the 21cm-line emission, HI surveys have proven to be the sole effective method for penetrating this highly obscured region, significantly reducing the ZOA gap. However, previous HI surveys lacked the necessary frequency coverage, sensitivity, and angular resolution to trace the HI-rich galaxy population of the recently discovered Vela Supercluster (VSCL). The VSCL, situated at a distance of ~260 Mpc, remains largely unexplored, despite its potential to help resolve discrepancies in bulk flow measurements. Utilizing the MeerKAT telescope's capabilities, we have embarked on systematic blind HI surveys to reveal the morphology and mass overdensity of the VSCL. Designed to connect known structures near the Galactic Plane with the optically obscured part of VSCL, the two HI surveys jointly encompass an area of ~300 square degrees over Delta_l = 30 deg and |b| < 7 deg. I will showcase the distribution of the highly obscured, HI-rich galaxy population out to cz < 25000 km/s, revealing indications of two wall-like structures crossing the ZOA at the VSCL distance (16000 < cz < 23000 km/s). This will then be followed by an in-depth assessment of the supercluster's overdensity, based on an HI mass function analysis.