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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.

Publications

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Brassington N (2007) The Chandra view of galaxy mergers in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Tarrant N (2008) Oscillations in ß Ursae Minoris Observations with SMEI in Astronomy & Astrophysics

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Acernese F (2008) The Real-Time Distributed Control of the Virgo Interferometric Detector of Gravitational Waves in IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science

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Jetha N (2008) The nature of the ghost cavity in the NGC 741 group in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Croston J (2008) Galaxy-cluster gas-density distributions of the representative XMM-Newton cluster structure survey (REXCESS) in Astronomy & Astrophysics

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Abbott B (2008) Search of S3 LIGO data for gravitational wave signals from spinning black hole and neutron star binary inspirals in Physical Review D

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Abbott B (2008) Publisher's Note: Upper limit map of a background of gravitational waves [Phys. Rev. D 76 , 082003 (2007)] in Physical Review D

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Chakrabarty D (2008) THE DISTRIBUTION OF DARK MATTER IN THE HALO OF THE EARLY-TYPE GALAXY NGC 4636 in The Astronomical Journal

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Tarrant N (2008) SMEI observations of previously unseen pulsation frequencies in $\sf \gamma$ Doradus in Astronomy & Astrophysics

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George S (2008) A deep 150 MHz Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope survey in Eridanus in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society