Cosmology and Astrophysics at Portsmouth

This consolidated grant is to support cosmologists and astrophysicists in the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation (ICG) at the University of Portsmouth. The ICG was formed in 2002 through a strategic investment from the university, and now hosts 50 researchers making it one of the largest extragalactic astronomy groups in the UK e.g. ranked 8th in research outputs in the recent REF2014.

Cosmology and astrophysics are experiencing a golden age of discovery driven by new experiments and theoretical advances. However, we still face three fundamental challenges before a more complete model of the Universe can be achieved: i) What are the properties of the "dark matter" and "dark energy" that make up 96% of the Universe? ii) How do galaxies form and evolve? iii) What is the origin, and statistical nature, of structures in the Universe? This grant will address these fundamental problems through pioneering theoretical work and the use of new surveys of the sky to map billions of distant galaxies. Galaxies are the "building blocks" of the Universe and as well as studying how they form, we will use the galaxies to improve our understanding of cosmology (the properties of the Universe as a whole). We will exploit current and forthcoming galaxy surveys including the Dark Energy Survey, SDSS-IV, SERVS and Euclid to measure numerous probes of cosmology such as the clustering of galaxies, supernovae and weak gravitational lensing (distortions of the galaxies' shape due to gravity). Precise cosmological models will be constructed and analysed, and simulated with Portsmouth's SCIAMA supercomputer. These models will be compared to data to reveal the cosmological properties of the Universe. The surveys will be used to study how galaxies form, by measuring their colours and taking detailed spectra of the galaxies. We will also study the evolution of galaxies by comparing the galaxies in the nearby Universe, showing their present state, with those of the distant Universe, which gives us a window into the past.

Bringing together all our work, we will model and measure the evolution of the Universe throughout its entire history. We will study how quantum fluctuations in the very early universe may be stretched by inflation in the very early universe to astronomical scales, leaving their imprint in the distribution of light and matter in the universe today. We will also explore the characteristic imprint of Einstein's general relativity and the role of dark energy in shaping the evolution of structure in our Universe. Additionally, our analyses will shed light on the properties of dark matter, which we can "see" via gravity but which does not interact like normal matter. We will also obtain a fuller understanding of the characteristics of galaxies throughout cosmic time. This will tell us whether the usual assumptions about dark matter provide an adequate description of the formation and evolution of galaxies.

ICG staff are committed to public outreach and have been engaged in a number of high-profile activities in the media and local community. For example, our staff have visited many local schools to discuss their careers, their research, and share their enthusiasm for astrophysics and cosmology, e.g. BBC Stargazing Live for the last few years with thousands of participants

Schools: ICG is a member of the South East Physics Network (SEPNet; www.sepnet.ac.uk) which coordinates a regional outreach programme led by a central outreach director to support the development and dissemination of good practice and the assessment of impact. Since 2011, SEPnet outreach has delivered activities to over 100k people. Since 2012, the ICG has employed a SEPnet / Ogden Outreach Officer (Jennifer Gupta) who has developed our own professionally-run schools programme. This includes our popular "A Visit from Space" (engaging 609 KS2 children since Oct 2013), our own Astrodome facility (targeted at secondary schools), and our "Cosmology Masterclass", which supports A-level Physics (e.g. 107 students attended in 2013-14, 60% commenting that the event changed their view on studying STEM at university). On top of this, ICG members engaged with 2729 school pupils in 2013-14 through individual talks, workshops and other events and hosted several work experience students. With all these activities, we are committed to encouraging wider participation in science and higher education. We work with our University Education, Liaison and Outreach Team to ensure our activities are advertised to target widening participation schools, of which there are many in the Portsmouth area.

Public Engagement: All ICG members are encouraged to communicate the results of their science to help inspire the public. Our main engagement is through talks and presentations e.g. in 2014, ICG members delivered 37 public activities (e.g. Bestival, Winchester Science Festival). We also host annual public lectures by prominent external cosmologists (Bernard Shutz in 2014) which always sell out to capacity. ICG staff and students help deliver major annual "BBC Stargazing Live" local events with thousands of ticketed visitors. In June 2014, ICG hosted NAM and ran an unprecedented array of public engagement events, from art exhibits to a sold-out "Science Comedy Night" hosted by Helen Arney. Finally, we engage with the public through traditional and online media. In the last year, staff have featured in a variety of print articles (Economist, Nature, Astronomy), appeared on the BBC Horizon (March 2015) and "Sky at Night" (June 2014), and worked to obtain excellent exposure in the local media (print, radio and TV). Our PhD student LeCras won the IoP's "Young Communicator Award" in 2014, and Masters, was one of the BBC's "100 Women" for 2014, as well as winning the "Women of the Future 2014" Science category.

Citizen Science: ICG members are involved in the Galaxy Zoo (GZ) project, an online galaxy classification tool which inspired the Zooniverse citizen science platform (www.zooniverse.org) with over 1.2 million registered users. Masters and Nichol collaborate with educational specialists and social scientists on work to quantify the impact of GZ on the knowledge and perceptions of its users. These works are among the first objective studies of the impact of citizen science on participants.

Knowledge Exchange: From March 2015, the ICG will host a STFC IPS Fellowship focused on enhancing the innovation potential from our research. The fellow will develop collaborative project activity with industrial partners across ICG & SEPNet, with a view to increasing the volume, depth and value of commercialisation of research. Recent examples of innovation includes Masters working on an Innovate:UK funded project with a local satellite imaging company (www.rsacl.co.uk) to explore the use of crowdsourcing techniques (like Galaxy Zoo) to measure land use change. Masters is also a Co-I on an EPSRC funded collaboration studying the economics of volunteering online (with the Portsmouth Business School).

Developing Countries: ICG has strong ties to several developing countries, but especially South Africa and China (via joint appointments of Maartens and Zhao respectively).