We have discovered a giant radio halo in the massive merging cluster MACSJ0417.5-1154. This cluster, at a redshift of 0.443, is one of the most X-ray luminous galaxy cluster in the MAssive Cluster Survey (MACS) with an X-ray luminosity in the 0.1–2.4 keV band of 2.9 × 10⁴⁵ erg s^-1. Recent observations from GMRT at 230 and 610 MHz have revealed a radio halo of ∼ 1.2 × 0.3 Mpc² in extent. This halo is elongated along the North-West, similar to the morphology of the X-ray emission from Chandra. The 1400 MHz radio luminosity (𝐿_r) of the halo is ∼ 2 × 10²⁵ W Hz^-1, in good agreement with the value expected from the 𝐿_x - 𝐿_r correlation for cluster halos.

The intra-cluster and inter-galactic media that pervade the large scale structure of the Universe are known to be magnetized at sub-micro Gauss to micro Gauss levels and to contain cosmic rays. The acceleration of cosmic rays and their evolution along with that of magnetic fields in these media is still not well understood. Diffuse radio sources of synchrotron origin associated with the Intra-Cluster Medium (ICM) such as radio halos, relics and mini-halos are direct probes of the underlying mechanisms of cosmic ray acceleration. Observations with radio telescopes such as the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope, the Very Large Array and the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope have led to the discoveries of about 80 such sources and allowed detailed studies in the frequency range 0.15–1.4 GHz of a few. These studies have revealed scaling relations between the thermal and non-thermal properties of clusters and favour the role of shocks in the formation of radio relics and of turbulent re-acceleration in the formation of radio halos and mini-halos. The radio halos are known to occur in merging clusters and mini-halos are detected in about half of the cool-core clusters. Due to the limitations of current radio telescopes, low mass galaxy clusters and galaxy groups remain unexplored as they are expected to contain much weaker radio sources. Distinguishing between the primary and the secondary models of cosmic ray acceleration mechanisms requires spectral measurements over a wide range of radio frequencies and with high sensitivity. Simulations have also predicted weak diffuse radio sources associated with filaments connecting galaxy clusters. The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) is a next generation radio telescope that will operate in the frequency range of 0.05–20 GHz with unprecedented sensitivities and resolutions. The expected detection limits of SKA will reveal a few hundred to thousand new radio halos, relics and mini-halos providing the first large and comprehensive samples for their study. The wide frequency coverage along with sensitivity to extended structures will be able to constrain the cosmic ray acceleration mechanisms. The higher frequency (>5 GHz) observations will be able to use the Sunyaev–Zel’dovich effect to probe the ICM pressure in addition to tracers such as lobes of head–tail radio sources. The SKA also opens prospects to detect the ‘off-state’ or the lowest level of radio emission from the ICM predicted by the hadronic models and the turbulent re-acceleration models.

We present new radio observations of the massive and X-ray luminous galaxy cluster MACS J0417.5–1154, at 1.387 GHz and 18 GHz, from the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) and the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) respectively.We estimate diffuse emission in the central region ofthe cluster at 1.387 GHz and 18 GHz. We combine these data with previously published results and present the spectrum of diffuse emission from 76 MHz to 18 GHz. This is possibly a unique study of the radio halo emission in galaxy cluster over this wide range of frequencies. Such studies lay the prospects of future studies with radio telescopes with wide-range of frequencies like the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). Our 1.387 GHz data, with 2$^{\prime\prime}$ angular resolution, provides a better estimate of point source emission than previous L-band observations, which is crucial, given the claim of sharp steepening of the radio halo spectrum at 0.61 GHz reported earlier. We find that the spectrum of the radio halo has a spectral index fit up to 18 GHz, and yields a spectral indexbetween 76 MHz and 18 GHz that fits the available data better than earlier L-band observations. We discuss possible reasons for the peculiar spectral characteristics of the diffuse emission.