Astrophysics in St Andrews/SUPA
Lead Research Organisation:
University of St Andrews
Department Name: Physics and Astronomy
Abstract
The St Andrews astronomy group is interested in questions of origins: where do galaxies, stars and planets come from, and what fundamental physics explains their formation? We are world leaders in solving intricate mathematical problems in these areas, and we use novel methods such as observations at very high precision and simulations with super-computers. Recently we have joined with other groups across Scotland via the Scottish Universities Physics Alliance (SUPA), and in particular broadened our studies of planet formation via theoretical and experimental work from new team members in Edinburgh and Strathclyde. We study a very wide spread of size scales, from discovering planetary systems around stars a few light years away out to measuring the force of gravity acting on the whole universe. We are especially known for comparing observations and theory of astronomical phenomena, so as to best understand the real universe. For example, we predict how protostars form in molecular clouds and grow and interact, and then observe real clouds to test that young stars have the predicted masses and positions. We have five major themes to our research programme. Theme A involves the search for planets beyond the Solar System and focuses on finding the first planets of mass as low as the Earth's. We use timing of transits, when a planet crosses the face of its star causing a brief darkening, and also gravitational lensing, which exploits Einstein's prediction that a planet drifting across the sightline to a distant background star will bend more of its light towards us. Theme B studies how these extrasolar planets form, in the brief time when a young star is orbited by a remnant disc of gases and rocks. We simulate how this material collects into planets, and check that the basic physics is correct using low-gravity plane flights to experimentally collide rocks in interstellar-like conditions of cold and vacuum. The results are tested by imaging real discs to track how planet systems form and then evolve over billions of years. Theme C examines how the young stars themselves form out of gas clouds, and we are working towards simulations with a billion interacting test particles, to study whether events like supernova explosions trigger the birth of new generations of stars. We also analyse if a star connects by magnetic fields to its disc, and if this affects how fast the star spins and what happens to the material that could form planets. Theme D expands this work to much bigger scales, and we will simulate a whole galaxy of stars, while a survey of 250,000 galaxies will study how their structure emerges. If we know how galaxies form into their characteristic shapes of flat discs, spiral arms and central bulges, we can then look at exotic phenomena such as mass flowing inwards to make a super-massive black hole. The intense light from these black holes has an echo effect as it travels to our telescopes that we also use to study the mass and expansion of the universe as a whole. Theme E wraps up this large-scale picture of the universe by testing Newton's law of gravity - some strange results on how galaxies move could be explained if the law is different on small and large scales. We explore this new idea mathematically and design astronomical observations to test it, ranging from the motion of spacecraft in the Solar System to fluctuations in radiation left over from the Big Bang. We address key questions in the Science Roadmap, especially: what are the laws of physics in extreme conditions? how do galaxies, stars and planets form and evolve? and are we alone in the universe? Our work uses many STFC-funded telescopes at a wide range of wavelengths from radio through visible to X-ray. Our new science projects are building up to use major international projects such as ALMA, eMERLIN, Herschel, JWST, SKA and the KEPLER and PLATO planet-detection missions.
Organisations
Publications
Aarnio A
(2012)
Mechanical equilibrium of hot, large-scale magnetic loops on T Tauri stars TTS magnetic loops
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Acke B
(2012)
Herschel images of Fomalhaut An extrasolar Kuiper belt at the height of its dynamical activity
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Agius N
(2013)
GAMA/H-ATLAS: linking the properties of submm detected and undetected early-type galaxies - I. z = 0.06 sample
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Ainsworth R
(2013)
Subarcsecond high-sensitivity measurements of the DG Tau jet with e-MERLIN
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters
Albrow M
(2009)
Difference imaging photometry of blended gravitational microlensing events with a numerical kernel
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Alpaslan M
(2012)
Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): estimating galaxy group masses via caustic analysis Galaxy group masses via caustic analysis
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Alsubai K
(2011)
Qatar-1b: a hot Jupiter orbiting a metal-rich K dwarf star Qatar-1b: a planet transiting a K dwarf star
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Amblard A
(2010)
Herschel -ATLAS: Dust temperature and redshift distribution of SPIRE and PACS detected sources using submillimetre colours
in Astronomy and Astrophysics
Anderson D
(2010)
WASP-17b: AN ULTRA-LOW DENSITY PLANET IN A PROBABLE RETROGRADE ORBIT
in The Astrophysical Journal
André P
(2012)
Interferometric identification of a pre-brown dwarf.
in Science (New York, N.Y.)
Arzoumanian D
(2011)
The contribution of star-spots to coronal structure Contribution of star-spots to coronal structure
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Bachelet E
(2012)
A brown dwarf orbiting an M-dwarf: MOA 2009-BLG-411L
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Bachelet E
(2012)
MOA 2010-BLG-477Lb: CONSTRAINING THE MASS OF A MICROLENSING PLANET FROM MICROLENSING PARALLAX, ORBITAL MOTION, AND DETECTION OF BLENDED LIGHT
in The Astrophysical Journal
Baldry I
(2010)
Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): the input catalogue and star-galaxy separation
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Baldry I
(2012)
Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): the galaxy stellar mass function at z < 0.06 GAMA: the galaxy stellar mass function
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Batista V
(2011)
MOA-2009-BLG-387Lb: a massive planet orbiting an M dwarf
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Batista V
(2009)
Mass measurement of a single unseen star and planetary detection efficiency for OGLE 2007-BLG-050
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Bauer A
(2013)
Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): linking star formation histories and stellar mass growth
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Bennett D
(2010)
MASSES AND ORBITAL CONSTRAINTS FOR THE OGLE-2006-BLG-109Lb,c JUPITER/SATURN ANALOG PLANETARY SYSTEM
in The Astrophysical Journal
Bentz M
(2010)
THE LICK AGN MONITORING PROJECT: VELOCITY-DELAY MAPS FROM THE MAXIMUM-ENTROPY METHOD FOR Arp 151
in The Astrophysical Journal
Blake C
(2013)
Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): improved cosmic growth measurements using multiple tracers of large-scale structure
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Bond N
(2012)
THE INFRARED PROPERTIES OF SOURCES MATCHED IN THE WISE ALL-SKY AND HERSCHEL ATLAS SURVEYS
in The Astrophysical Journal
Bonnell I
(2013)
Shocks, cooling and the origin of star formation rates in spiral galaxies
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Bonnell I
(2011)
The Formation of Massive Stars
in Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union
Bonnell I
(2011)
The efficiency of star formation in clustered and distributed regions Clustered and distributed star formation
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Booth M
(2012)
Resolved debris discs around A stars in the Herschel DEBRIS survey
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Bourne N
(2012)
Herschel?-ATLAS/GAMA: a census of dust in optically selected galaxies from stacking at submillimetre wavelengths H-ATLAS/GAMA: dust in optically selected galaxies
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Bozza V
(2012)
OGLE-2008-BLG-510: first automated real-time detection of a weak microlensing anomaly - brown dwarf or stellar binary?? OGLE-2008-BLG-510 - weak microlensing anomaly
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Bramich D
(2012)
Difference image analysis: extension to a spatially varying photometric scale factor and other considerations
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Breedt E
(2009)
Long-term optical and X-ray variability of the Seyfert galaxy Markarian 79
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Broekhoven-Fiene H
(2013)
THE DEBRIS DISK AROUND ? DORADUS RESOLVED WITH HERSCHEL
in The Astrophysical Journal
Brough S
(2011)
Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA): galaxies at the faint end of the Ha luminosity function GAMA: low-Ha-luminosity galaxies
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Brown D
(2012)
Rossiter-McLaughlin effect measurements for WASP-16, WASP-25 and WASP-31? The alignment of WASP-16, WASP-25 and WASP-31
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Bryan M
(2012)
QATAR-2: A K DWARF ORBITED BY A TRANSITING HOT JUPITER AND A MORE MASSIVE COMPANION IN AN OUTER ORBIT
in The Astrophysical Journal
Buckle J
(2012)
The JCMT Legacy Survey of the Gould Belt: mapping 13CO and C18O in Orion A GBS HARP survey: Orion A
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Buckle J
(2010)
The JCMT Legacy Survey of the Gould Belt: a first look at Orion B with HARP
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Butters O
(2010)
The first WASP public data release
in Astronomy and Astrophysics
Cameron AC
(2012)
Extrasolar planets: Astrophysical false positives.
in Nature
Cameron E
(2008)
Galaxy evolution by color-log( n ) type since redshift unity in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Cameron E
(2009)
THE MILLENNIUM GALAXY CATALOGUE: EXPLORING THE COLOR-CONCENTRATION BIMODALITY VIA BULGE-DISK DECOMPOSITION
in The Astrophysical Journal
Cassan A
(2010)
Bayesian analysis of caustic-crossing microlensing events
in Astronomy and Astrophysics
Cassan A
(2012)
One or more bound planets per Milky Way star from microlensing observations.
in Nature
Choi J
(2013)
MICROLENSING DISCOVERY OF A POPULATION OF VERY TIGHT, VERY LOW MASS BINARY BROWN DWARFS
in The Astrophysical Journal
Choi J
(2012)
CHARACTERIZING LENSES AND LENSED STARS OF HIGH-MAGNIFICATION SINGLE-LENS GRAVITATIONAL MICROLENSING EVENTS WITH LENSES PASSING OVER SOURCE STARS
in The Astrophysical Journal
Choi J
(2012)
A NEW TYPE OF AMBIGUITY IN THE PLANET AND BINARY INTERPRETATIONS OF CENTRAL PERTURBATIONS OF HIGH-MAGNIFICATION GRAVITATIONAL MICROLENSING EVENTS
in The Astrophysical Journal
Christian D
(2011)
THE SEARCH FOR SUPER-SATURATION IN CHROMOSPHERIC EMISSION
in The Astrophysical Journal
Christian D
(2009)
WASP-10b: a 3M J , gas-giant planet transiting a late-type K star
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Christodoulou L
(2012)
Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): colour- and luminosity-dependent clustering from calibrated photometric redshifts GAMA clustering using photometric redshifts
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Churcher L
(2011)
Multiwavelength modelling of the ß Leo debris disc: one, two or three planetesimal populations?? Modelling the ß Leo debris disc
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Clark P
(2012)
How long does it take to form a molecular cloud? Molecular cloud formation time-scales
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society