Astrophysics and Cosmology Research within the JBCA 2017-2020
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Manchester
Department Name: Physics and Astronomy
Abstract
This grant supports the research of the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester. Our research is a divided into 3 groups. There are too many specific proposals to describe in detail, do below we have given a brief layman's explanation of the work being carried out by the three groups.
Cosmology: This is the study of the Universe as a whole. The main aim is to understand the processes by which the large scale feature of the Universe formed and to constrain the various different kinds of matter that existed within it. These include dark matter and dark energy which are thought to constitute more than 95% of the total. We do this by comparison to observations of weak and strong gravitational lensing which is the distortion of light predicted to be caused by massive objects in Einstein' Theory of General Relativity, the cosmic microwave background which is the faint emission of radiation created at the time when protons and electrons come together to form hydrogen and the emission given off by neutral hydrogen atoms in galaxies. The research we propose here involves both theory and observation as well as the development of the technology necessary to make the observations possible.
Sun, Stars and Galaxies: The researchers in this group study a wide range of astrophysical processes that are reasonable for the formation and evolution of the objects in the name of the group. Specific key areas that the group is interested in are the formation of stars much larger than the Sun and the subsequent evolution, the properties of the so-called interstellar medium (ISM) which comprises molecules not bound to stars and the magnetic fields that permeate space.
Pulsars and Time Domain Astrophysics: The focus of this group is astrophysical signatures that are change with time: things which come on and off, often with some kind of regularity. These include Pulsars which are non-standard star time, known as a neutron star, which is a dead star supported by the quantum pressure of neutrons. The radio emission from these objects pulses on an off with extraordinary regularity allowing them to acts cosmic clocks. The constantly measuring these clocks as the neutron stars spin and move through space, often impacted on by a companion star, allows the most precise constraints on the nature of gravity outside the solar system. Other phenomena studied by this group include Nova explosions, other variable stars, and variability induced by the lensing effects of one star passing in front of another, called microlensing.
Cosmology: This is the study of the Universe as a whole. The main aim is to understand the processes by which the large scale feature of the Universe formed and to constrain the various different kinds of matter that existed within it. These include dark matter and dark energy which are thought to constitute more than 95% of the total. We do this by comparison to observations of weak and strong gravitational lensing which is the distortion of light predicted to be caused by massive objects in Einstein' Theory of General Relativity, the cosmic microwave background which is the faint emission of radiation created at the time when protons and electrons come together to form hydrogen and the emission given off by neutral hydrogen atoms in galaxies. The research we propose here involves both theory and observation as well as the development of the technology necessary to make the observations possible.
Sun, Stars and Galaxies: The researchers in this group study a wide range of astrophysical processes that are reasonable for the formation and evolution of the objects in the name of the group. Specific key areas that the group is interested in are the formation of stars much larger than the Sun and the subsequent evolution, the properties of the so-called interstellar medium (ISM) which comprises molecules not bound to stars and the magnetic fields that permeate space.
Pulsars and Time Domain Astrophysics: The focus of this group is astrophysical signatures that are change with time: things which come on and off, often with some kind of regularity. These include Pulsars which are non-standard star time, known as a neutron star, which is a dead star supported by the quantum pressure of neutrons. The radio emission from these objects pulses on an off with extraordinary regularity allowing them to acts cosmic clocks. The constantly measuring these clocks as the neutron stars spin and move through space, often impacted on by a companion star, allows the most precise constraints on the nature of gravity outside the solar system. Other phenomena studied by this group include Nova explosions, other variable stars, and variability induced by the lensing effects of one star passing in front of another, called microlensing.
Planned Impact
The range of research we undertake and the world-class facilities within and in close association with JBCA (the Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre, e-MERLIN, the Lovell Telescope, the ALMA ARC and the SKA HQ) will provide key pathways to increasing our already strong impact on UK and global industry, the next generation of scientists and engineers, and the general public. The University's investment in the Jodrell Bank site combined with significant external funding (e.g. from Heritage Lottery Fund) will enable us to expand its use as an iconic venue for public and industrial engagement. The programme described here formed a key part of the School's submission for REF2014, helping it to be ranked highest in the REF for physics impact with 83% at 4* and 17% at 3*. Our outreach \& public engagement programme is extremely strong and continues to grow, particularly through its work with the University's award-winning Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre and the BBC. With the recent decision on SKA HQ location and our strong research work in this area, there is also growing impact in both outreach and industrial engagement in this area.
Our "Pathways to Impact" statement in the case for support outlines things that we have done in recent times under the headings of "Outreach and Public Engagement" and "Industrial and economic impact". We list some highlights below.
- Jodcast: Podcast run by students with 7000 regular listeners.
- 230000 Twitter followers
- Stargazing live
- JB Discovery centre with 150000 visitors per year
- Award winning "Live from Jodrell Bank" rock concerts
- Industry contracts for SKA work including CISCO, AASL, NPL, GEANT
- Newton programme for Radio Astronomy in Africa.
Our "Pathways to Impact" statement in the case for support outlines things that we have done in recent times under the headings of "Outreach and Public Engagement" and "Industrial and economic impact". We list some highlights below.
- Jodcast: Podcast run by students with 7000 regular listeners.
- 230000 Twitter followers
- Stargazing live
- JB Discovery centre with 150000 visitors per year
- Award winning "Live from Jodrell Bank" rock concerts
- Industry contracts for SKA work including CISCO, AASL, NPL, GEANT
- Newton programme for Radio Astronomy in Africa.
Organisations
Publications
Green J
(2017)
The 6-GHz multibeam maser survey - II. Statistical analysis and Galactic distribution of 6668-MHz methanol masers
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Vlemmings W
(2017)
Magnetically aligned dust and SiO maser polarisation in the envelope of the red supergiant VY Canis Majoris
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Hartley P
(2017)
Support vector machine classification of strong gravitational lenses
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Patra N
(2017)
Bandpass calibration of a wideband spectrometer using coherent pulse injection
in Experimental Astronomy
Thomas D
(2017)
Estimating the weak-lensing rotation signal in radio cosmic shear surveys
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Espinoza C
(2017)
New long-term braking index measurements for glitching pulsars using a glitch-template method
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Ryu Y
(2017)
OGLE-2016-BLG-1190Lb: The First Spitzer Bulge Planet Lies Near the Planet/Brown-dwarf Boundary
in The Astronomical Journal
Penny M
(2017)
Predictions for the Detection and Characterization of a Population of Free-floating Planets with K2 Campaign 9
in The Astronomical Journal
Ginsburg A
(2017)
Thermal Feedback in the High-mass Star- and Cluster-forming Region W51
in The Astrophysical Journal
Fuentes J
(2017)
The glitch activity of neutron stars
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Cesaroni R
(2017)
Chasing discs around O-type (proto)stars: Evidence from ALMA observations
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
LIGO Scientific Collaboration And The Virgo Collaboration
(2017)
A gravitational-wave standard siren measurement of the Hubble constant.
in Nature
Bassa C
(2017)
LOFAR Discovery of the Fastest-spinning Millisecond Pulsar in the Galactic Field
in The Astrophysical Journal Letters
Eden D
(2017)
The JCMT Plane Survey: first complete data release - emission maps and compact source catalogue
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Smits R
(2017)
The beamformer and correlator for the Large European Array for Pulsars
in Astronomy and Computing
Otsuka M
(2017)
The Herschel Planetary Nebula Survey (HerPlaNS): A Comprehensive Dusty Photoionization Model of NGC6781.
in The Astrophysical journal. Supplement series
Abitbol M
(2017)
Prospects for measuring cosmic microwave background spectral distortions in the presence of foregrounds
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Cyganowski C
(2017)
Simultaneous low- and high-mass star formation in a massive protocluster: ALMA observations of G11.92-0.61?
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Chluba J
(2017)
Evolution of CMB spectral distortion anisotropies and tests of primordial non-Gaussianity
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Petroff E
(2017)
A polarized fast radio burst at low Galactic latitude
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Bahé Y
(2017)
The Hydrangea simulations: galaxy formation in and around massive clusters
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Herpin F
(2017)
First detection of a THz water maser in NGC 7538-IRS1 with SOFIA and new 22 GHz e-MERLIN maps
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Chluba J
(2017)
Rethinking CMB foregrounds: systematic extension of foreground parametrizations
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Graikou E
(2017)
Limits on the mass, velocity and orbit of PSR J1933-6211
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Berezina M
(2017)
The discovery of two mildly recycled binary pulsars in the Northern High Time Resolution Universe pulsar survey
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Guidetti D
(2017)
The eMERGE Survey - I: Very Large Array 5.5 GHz observations of the GOODS-North Field
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Sathyanarayana Rao M
(2017)
Modeling the Radio Foreground for Detection of CMB Spectral Distortions from the Cosmic Dawn and the Epoch of Reionization
in The Astrophysical Journal
Pleunis Z
(2017)
A Millisecond Pulsar Discovery in a Survey of Unidentified Fermi ?-Ray Sources with LOFAR
in The Astrophysical Journal Letters
Geyer M
(2017)
Scattering analysis of LOFAR pulsar observations
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Harper G
(2017)
An Updated 2017 Astrometric Solution for Betelgeuse
in The Astronomical Journal
Rumsey C
(2017)
AMI SZ observation of galaxy-cluster merger CIZA J2242+5301: perpendicular flows of gas and dark matter
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Issaoun S
(2017)
VLBA imaging of the 3 mm SiO maser emission in the disk-wind from the massive protostellar system Orion Source I
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
McKinney J
(2017)
Double Compton and Cyclo-Synchrotron in Super-Eddington Discs, Magnetized Coronae, and Jets
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Tafoya D
(2017)
(sub)Millimeter Emission Lines of Molecules in Born-again Stars?.
in Astronomy and astrophysics
Gómez-Ruiz A
(2017)
Early science with the Large Millimeter Telescope: molecules in the extreme outflow of a protoplanetary nebula
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters
Abbott B
(2017)
First Search for Gravitational Waves from Known Pulsars with Advanced LIGO
in The Astrophysical Journal
O'Gorman E
(2017)
The inhomogeneous submillimeter atmosphere of Betelgeuse
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Anglada G
(2017)
ALMA Discovery of Dust Belts around Proxima Centauri
in The Astrophysical Journal Letters
Wang J
(2017)
Comparison of pulsar positions from timing and very long baseline astrometry
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Boyer M
(2017)
An Infrared Census of DUST in Nearby Galaxies with Spitzer (DUSTiNGS). IV. Discovery of High-redshift AGB Analogs *
in The Astrophysical Journal
Anderson G
(2017)
The peculiar mass-loss history of SN 2014C as revealed through AMI radio observations
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Perera B
(2017)
Evidence for an intermediate-mass black hole in the globular cluster NGC 6624
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Deng X
(2017)
Observing Pulsars with a Phased Array Feed at the Parkes Telescope
in Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia
Li H
(2017)
SDSS-IV MaNGA: Variation of the Stellar Initial Mass Function in Spiral and Early-type Galaxies
in The Astrophysical Journal
Baudry A
(2017)
Vibrationally excited water emission at 658 GHz from evolved stars
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Gozzard D
(2017)
Astronomical Verification of a Stabilized Frequency Reference Transfer System for the Square Kilometer Array
in The Astronomical Journal
Olivari L
(2018)
Cosmological parameter forecasts for H i intensity mapping experiments using the angular power spectrum
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
In 't Zand J
(2018)
Observatory science with eXTP
in Science China Physics, Mechanics & Astronomy
Pol N
(2018)
A Direct Measurement of Sense of Rotation of PSR J0737-3039A
in The Astrophysical Journal
Gray M
(2018)
A new 3D maser code applied to flaring events
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
| Description | The consolidated grant supported a wide range of activities in astrophysics and cosmology at the JBCA. This was based around three areas: cosmology - the study of the Universe as a single entity, pulsars - spinning neutron stars which emit pulse of radio waves at regular intervals, astrophysical processes - the study of galaxy and star formation in the universe. Progress was made in all these areas. |
| Exploitation Route | The wide range of work produce by the grant has been published in journals. These papers have received significant citations indicating that all the areas have had an impact within the academic research community. |
| Sectors | Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software) Education Other |
| Description | The research has been used extensively in the outreach program of the Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre, which attracts 160,000 visitors per annum and focusses on hard-to-reach audiences. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2020 |
| Sector | Education |
| Impact Types | Cultural Societal |
| Title | MKT J170456.2-482100: the first transient discovered byMeerKAT |
| Description | These are the data files required to make Figures 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, and 12 of the manuscript: https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stz3027 or Open-Access on ArXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.07713 The code that uses these files to make the plots can be found here (DOI). Please make sure to cite these data correctly! The required citations for these data are: ASAS_data.tsv is ASAS data from their catalogue and therefore are not covered by our licence. If you make use of these data please cite ASAS appropriately according to their guidelines. KELT_S36_lc_027056_V01_west_tfa.dat and KELT_S36_lc_027057_V01_east_tfa.dat are data sets from KELT and therefore are not covered by our licence. If you make use of these data please cite KELT by citing Pepper et al. 2007. ASASSN.csv is ASAS-SN data from their catalogue and therefore are not covered by our licence. If you make use of these data please cite ASAS-SN appropriately according to their guidelines (when using ASAS-SN light curves in publications cite: Shappee et al. (2014) and Kochanek et al. (2017)). TYC_optical_semesters.npy, TYC_optical_binned.npy, and TYC_optical_binned_noOutliers.npy also make use of the above ASAS, KELT, and ASAS-SN. If you use these data please cite ASAS, KELT, and ASAS-SN as above, as well as our work. TYC_MeerKAT_fluxes.npy and TYC_local_RMS.npy are the data as presented in Table A1 in our manuscript. Therefore, please cite our work if you make use of these data. TYC_SED_datapoints.txt and TYC_SED_model.txt are the data and model used to make the SED of TYC 8332-2529-1. Please cite our work and the references therein for the datapoints, and our work and McDonald et al. 2012 and McDonald et al. 2017 if you make use of the model. TYC_MeerKAT_ScaledFlux.npy is presented in Figures 2 and 10 of our manuscript, please cite our work if you make use of these data SALT_radial_velocities.npy and LCO_radial_velocities.npy are presented in Table 2 of our manuscript, please cite our work if you make use of these data TYC_LS_periods.npy and TYC_LS_periodErrors.npy are the results of the Lomb-Scargle analysis of the optical observations and are presented in Figure 4 of our manuscript, please cite our work if you make use of these data More information about the format of these data and how to use them can be found in the GitHub repo (DOI). |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| URL | https://zenodo.org/record/3548868 |
| Title | MKT J170456.2-482100: the first transient discovered byMeerKAT |
| Description | These are the data files required to make Figures 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, and 12 of the manuscript: https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stz3027 or Open-Access on ArXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.07713 The code that uses these files to make the plots can be found here (DOI). Please make sure to cite these data correctly! The required citations for these data are: ASAS_data.tsv is ASAS data from their catalogue and therefore are not covered by our licence. If you make use of these data please cite ASAS appropriately according to their guidelines. KELT_S36_lc_027056_V01_west_tfa.dat and KELT_S36_lc_027057_V01_east_tfa.dat are data sets from KELT and therefore are not covered by our licence. If you make use of these data please cite KELT by citing Pepper et al. 2007. ASASSN.csv is ASAS-SN data from their catalogue and therefore are not covered by our licence. If you make use of these data please cite ASAS-SN appropriately according to their guidelines (when using ASAS-SN light curves in publications cite: Shappee et al. (2014) and Kochanek et al. (2017)). TYC_optical_semesters.npy, TYC_optical_binned.npy, and TYC_optical_binned_noOutliers.npy also make use of the above ASAS, KELT, and ASAS-SN. If you use these data please cite ASAS, KELT, and ASAS-SN as above, as well as our work. TYC_MeerKAT_fluxes.npy and TYC_local_RMS.npy are the data as presented in Table A1 in our manuscript. Therefore, please cite our work if you make use of these data. TYC_SED_datapoints.txt and TYC_SED_model.txt are the data and model used to make the SED of TYC 8332-2529-1. Please cite our work and the references therein for the datapoints, and our work and McDonald et al. 2012 and McDonald et al. 2017 if you make use of the model. TYC_MeerKAT_ScaledFlux.npy is presented in Figures 2 and 10 of our manuscript, please cite our work if you make use of these data SALT_radial_velocities.npy and LCO_radial_velocities.npy are presented in Table 2 of our manuscript, please cite our work if you make use of these data TYC_LS_periods.npy and TYC_LS_periodErrors.npy are the results of the Lomb-Scargle analysis of the optical observations and are presented in Figure 4 of our manuscript, please cite our work if you make use of these data More information about the format of these data and how to use them can be found in the GitHub repo (DOI). |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| URL | https://zenodo.org/record/3548867 |