New eyes on the Zone of Avoidance: what can MeerKAT tell us about the hidden core of the Vela Supercluster (VSCL)?

The Zone of Avoidance (ZOA) partially obscures numerous dynamically important structures in the nearby Universe. HI surveys, being the only feasible wavelength to systematically map the obscured galaxies, have been extremely efficient in reducing the ZOA gap. However, none of the previous HI surveys have the required frequency coverage, sensitivity, and angular resolution to trace the HI-rich galaxy population of the recently discovered Vela Supercluster (VSCL), which is located at a distance of 260 Mpc and whose innermost part remains unexplored.

We took advantage of the considerably good sensitivity and higher angular resolution of one of the SKA precursors, MeerKAT, to detect HI emission from the highly obscured galaxies in the ZoA out to cz < 25500 km/s (z < 0.085). Over a wide area of ~300 square degrees, we bridged the gap between the available multi-wavelength data containing known structures straddling the Galactic Plane and the inner ZOA. We identified galaxies in the obscured core of VSCL revealing two wall-like overdensities which possibly cross at l ~ 271º - 280º. We will present the overdensity within the VSCL volume based on the HI mass function (HIMF) and variations of the faint-end slope in the high- and low-density environments of our HI survey.