Birmingham Astrophysics - Rolling Grant 2007-2012
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Birmingham
Department Name: School of Physics and Astronomy
Abstract
The work of the Birmingham Astrophysics & Space Research group aims to improve our understanding of the Universe, and the force of gravity which governs its structure and growth. Our extragalactic studies aim to discover the way in which galaxies, such as our own Milky Way galaxy, have developed from the small fluctuations present in the primordial gas which filled the Universe after the Big Bang, as well as probing the mysterious 'dark matter' which appears to account for over 90% of the matter in the Universe at large. Our knowledge of the cosmos to date is gleaned almost entirely from study of the electromagnetic radiation (from radio waves to gamma rays) which reaches the Earth from space. However, a whole new astronomical 'window' is about to open, based on the propagating ripples in space-time known as gravitational waves. Detection of these signals is hugely demanding, but large laser-interferometers are now very close to detecting them for the first time, and the Birmingham group is fully involved in these experiments, and in the plans to move these techniques into space within the next decade. This will ultimately allow us to study the gravitational signals from giant black holes, and from the Big Bang itself. We are working towards the first detection of gravitational waves, but also exploring the new techniques which will be required to turn the study of gravitational waves into a true branch of astronomy.
Organisations
Publications
Stello D
(2010)
DETECTION OF SOLAR-LIKE OSCILLATIONS FROM KEPLER PHOTOMETRY OF THE OPEN CLUSTER NGC 6819
in The Astrophysical Journal
Accadia T
(2010)
Noise from scattered light in Virgo's second science run data
in Classical and Quantum Gravity
Cuevas-Tello J
(2010)
Uncovering delayed patterns in noisy and irregularly sampled time series: An astronomy application
in Pattern Recognition
Richard J
(2010)
LoCuSS: first results from strong-lensing analysis of 20 massive galaxy clusters at z = 0.2
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Zhang Y
(2010)
LoCuSS: A COMPARISON OF CLUSTER MASS MEASUREMENTS FROM XMM-NEWTON AND SUBARU-TESTING DEVIATION FROM HYDROSTATIC EQUILIBRIUM AND NON-THERMAL PRESSURE SUPPORT
in The Astrophysical Journal
Oguri M
(2010)
Direct measurement of dark matter halo ellipticity from two-dimensional lensing shear maps of 25 massive clusters? Measurement of dark matter halo ellipticity
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Sesana A
(2010)
Gravitational waves and pulsar timing: stochastic background, individual sources and parameter estimation
in Classical and Quantum Gravity
Dariush A
(2010)
The mass assembly of galaxy groups and the evolution of the magnitude gap
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Haines C
(2010)
LoCuSS: Shedding new light on the massive lensing cluster Abell 1689 - the view from Herschel
in Astronomy and Astrophysics
Fulda P
(2010)
Experimental demonstration of higher-order Laguerre-Gauss mode interferometry
in Physical Review D