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
Muno M
(2007)
Exciting the magnetosphere of the magnetar CXOU J164710.2-455216 in Westerlund 1
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters
Russell P
(2007)
Bayesian modelling of the cool core galaxy group NGC 4325
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Abbott B
(2007)
Upper limits on gravitational wave emission from 78 radio pulsars
in Physical Review D
Sumner T
(2007)
STEP (satellite test of the equivalence principle)
in Advances in Space Research
Bardeau S
(2007)
A CFH12k lensing survey of X-ray luminous galaxy clusters II. Weak lensing analysis and global correlations
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
De Becker M
(2007)
INTEGRAL-ISGRI observations of the Cygnus OB2 region Searching for hard X-ray point sources in a region containing several non-thermal emitting massive stars
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
George S
(2007)
Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope low-frequency observations of extrasolar planetary systems
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Swinbank A
(2007)
The discovery of a massive supercluster at z = 0.9 in the UKIDSS Deep eXtragalactic Survey
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Brassington N
(2007)
The Chandra view of galaxy mergers
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Böhringer H
(2007)
The representative XMM-Newton cluster structure survey (REXCESS) of an X-ray luminosity selected galaxy cluster sample
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Jetha N
(2007)
Erratum: Active galactic nuclei heating in the centres of galaxy groups: a statistical study
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Abbott B
(2007)
Upper limit map of a background of gravitational waves
in Physical Review D
Swinbank A
(2007)
Resolved spectroscopy of a gravitationally lensed L* Lyman-break galaxy at z~ 5
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Dariush A
(2007)
The mass assembly of fossil groups of galaxies in the Millennium simulation
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Abbott B
(2007)
Search for gravitational-wave bursts in LIGO data from the fourth science run
in Classical and Quantum Gravity
Winkler W
(2007)
The GEO 600 core optics
in Optics Communications
Abbott B
(2007)
Searches for periodic gravitational waves from unknown isolated sources and Scorpius X-1: Results from the second LIGO science run
in Physical Review D
Freise A
(2007)
Phase and alignment noise in grating interferometers
in New Journal of Physics
Zhang Y
(2007)
Scaling relations and mass calibration of the X-ray luminous galaxy clusters at redshift ~0.2: XMM-Newton observations
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Harms J
(2007)
Quantum-noise power spectrum of fields with discrete classical components
in Physical Review A
Rasmussen J
(2007)
Temperature and abundance profiles of hot gas in galaxy groups - I. Results and statistical analysis
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Acernese F
(2007)
The Virgo interferometric gravitational antenna
in Optics and Lasers in Engineering
Salucci P
(2007)
The baryonic and dark matter properties of high-redshift gravitationally lensed disc galaxies
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Tarrant N
(2007)
Asteroseismology of red giants: photometric observations of Arcturus by SMEI
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters
Abbott B
(2007)
First cross-correlation analysis of interferometric and resonant-bar gravitational-wave data for stochastic backgrounds
in Physical Review D