Search for non-thermal radio emission from Eta Carina's outer blast wave with ATCA

Non-thermal hard X-ray and high-energy (HE; 1 MeV < E < 100 GeV) gamma-ray emission in the direction of Eta Carina has been recently detected using the INTEGRAL, AGILE and Fermi satellites. This emission can be either interpreted in the framework of particle acceleration in the colliding wind region between the two massive stars or in the very fast moving blast wave which originates in the historical 1843 "Great Eruption". The detection of a radio shell at the location of the shock would support the latter scenario and confirm Eta Carina as prime example of a new source type, namely, an LBV star whose massive ejecta accelerates electrons to non-thermal energies. While Fermi and INTEGRAL do not provide sufficient angular resolution to resolve the blast wave, high resolution radio observations using ATCA will be able to test non-thermal radio emission from this acceleration site. The current sensitivity of ATCA is such that a relatively modest observation time of 12 hours will be sufficient to image the synchrotron emission from the blast region down to magnetic field strengths well below typical ISM values and hence prove or reject our blast-wave hypothesis for the high energy emission.