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
Smith G
(2009)
HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE OBSERVATIONS OF A SPECTACULAR NEW STRONG-LENSING GALAXY CLUSTER: MACS J1149.5+2223 AT z = 0.544
in The Astrophysical Journal
Pérez-González P
(2010)
Improving the identification of high- z Herschel sources with position priors and optical/NIR and FIR/mm photometric redshifts
in Astronomy and 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
David L
(2009)
ISOTROPIC ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEUS HEATING WITH SMALL RADIO-QUIET BUBBLES IN THE NGC 5044 GROUP
in The Astrophysical Journal
Abbott B
(2009)
LIGO: the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory
in Reports on Progress in Physics
Armano M
(2009)
LISA Pathfinder: the experiment and the route to LISA
in Classical and Quantum Gravity
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
Marrone D
(2009)
LoCuSS: A COMPARISON OF SUNYAEV-ZEL'DOVICH EFFECT AND GRAVITATIONAL-LENSING MEASUREMENTS OF GALAXY CLUSTERS
in The Astrophysical Journal
Pereira M
(2010)
LoCuSS: A Herschel view of obscured star formation in Abell 1835
in Astronomy and Astrophysics
Okabe N
(2010)
LoCuSS: CALIBRATING MASS-OBSERVABLE SCALING RELATIONS FOR CLUSTER COSMOLOGY WITH SUBARU WEAK-LENSING OBSERVATIONS
in The Astrophysical Journal