Astrophysics at the University of Nottingham 2020-2023
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Nottingham
Department Name: Sch of Physics & Astronomy
Abstract
The main focus of our research in Nottingham is to understand how galaxies form and how they evolve through time to produce the rich variety of structures we see today. We tackle these problems with a number of complementary approaches. One approach is to study relatively nearby galaxies, which we can observe in greater detail. In Nottingham we are involved in a large international project (MaNGA), designed to dissect thousands of local galaxies and extract far more information than was previously possible. At the other extreme, we also specialise in studying very distant galaxies, observing them in the act of formation and transformation many billions of years ago. Due to the finite speed of light, when we observe very distant galaxies we are also looking far back in time, allowing us to observe galaxy evolution at different stages throughout the history of the Universe. Another aim of our research is to understand the roles of "nature" versus "nurture" in shaping galaxy evolution, and in particular how they are influenced by the environments in which they reside. We tackle these varied and challenging problems using a combination of observational techniques, using some of the largest telescopes in the world and in space, combined with theoretical studies and computer simulations. With the latest supercomputers we can create models to simulate the formation of galaxies and the growth of cosmic structures. Many of the most interesting discoveries occur when we confront our models with the latest data, to directly test our understanding of the key processes shaping the Universe. We also use gravitational lensing, a novel technique that exploits the warping of space time by massive objects, which allows us to map the distribution of matter and structure in the Universe to great precision. Finally, we are also developing new "machine learning" tools to help the astronomical community analyse the vast amounts of data that are now routinely produced by astronomical observations and simulations.
Planned Impact
Impact is embedded in the culture and working of the Group, and we have a well-established track record in its delivery.
Our extensive outreach program includes all the activities traditionally associated with astronomy. We give talks at schools, astronomical societies and events, both locally and across the country. We write popular articles and books. We engage with the media both through regular contributions and one-off press releases presenting our work.
However, we are also committed to pushing boundaries in outreach by undertaking novel activities to reach new audiences in new ways. We have a track record of collaborating with artists to produce engagingly different events and installations. We are involved in the organisation of the citizen science movement to directly involve the public in our research. We have developed a programme of outreach to local schools that prioritises widening participation, which uses an inflatable planetarium (for which we obtained the funding) as the focus for the activity. We have established a very strong presence on YouTube through the Sixty Symbols and Deep Sky Videos channels, reaching a subscriber base of in excess of nearly a million people all across the World.
We also work across the breadth of knowledge exchange. We have developed our success in video presentation by producing YouTube series for external organisations (including STFC). We have spun out an outreach-related company that produces realistic renderings of astronomical objects in glass. We have assisted in the application of our research to other fields, such as applying machine-learning techniques to applications in quantum control and urbanisation.
It is in the nature of innovative research that one cannot predict the precise areas in which possible impact will arise, so it is important to maintain a flexible attitude to its exploitation (whilst insuring that it is not relegated to a minor role because of this uncertainty). The way in which impact is embedded in the culture of the Group ensures that we are in a position to capture and exploit these opportunities as they arise, and our clear strong track record in this area demonstrates that we actually do so in practice. We fully intend to continue with this committed flexible approach through the period of this Consolidated Grant.
Our extensive outreach program includes all the activities traditionally associated with astronomy. We give talks at schools, astronomical societies and events, both locally and across the country. We write popular articles and books. We engage with the media both through regular contributions and one-off press releases presenting our work.
However, we are also committed to pushing boundaries in outreach by undertaking novel activities to reach new audiences in new ways. We have a track record of collaborating with artists to produce engagingly different events and installations. We are involved in the organisation of the citizen science movement to directly involve the public in our research. We have developed a programme of outreach to local schools that prioritises widening participation, which uses an inflatable planetarium (for which we obtained the funding) as the focus for the activity. We have established a very strong presence on YouTube through the Sixty Symbols and Deep Sky Videos channels, reaching a subscriber base of in excess of nearly a million people all across the World.
We also work across the breadth of knowledge exchange. We have developed our success in video presentation by producing YouTube series for external organisations (including STFC). We have spun out an outreach-related company that produces realistic renderings of astronomical objects in glass. We have assisted in the application of our research to other fields, such as applying machine-learning techniques to applications in quantum control and urbanisation.
It is in the nature of innovative research that one cannot predict the precise areas in which possible impact will arise, so it is important to maintain a flexible attitude to its exploitation (whilst insuring that it is not relegated to a minor role because of this uncertainty). The way in which impact is embedded in the culture of the Group ensures that we are in a position to capture and exploit these opportunities as they arise, and our clear strong track record in this area demonstrates that we actually do so in practice. We fully intend to continue with this committed flexible approach through the period of this Consolidated Grant.
Organisations
- University of Nottingham (Lead Research Organisation)
- UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH (Collaboration)
- University of Chicago (Collaboration)
- Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-III) (Collaboration)
- University of St Andrews (Collaboration)
- University of Western Australia (Collaboration)
- European Space Agency (Collaboration)
- UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE (Collaboration)
- Autonomous University of Madrid (Collaboration)
Publications
Peterken Thomas
(2021)
Size, shade or shape? The contribution of galaxies of different types to the star-formation history of the Universe from SDSS-IV MaNGA
in arXiv e-prints
Wild Vivienne
(2020)
The star formation histories of z~1 post-starburst galaxies
in arXiv e-prints
Kuchner Ulrike
(2021)
Cosmic filaments in galaxy cluster outskirts: quantifying finding filaments in redshift space
in arXiv e-prints
Greener Michael J.
(2021)
SDSS-IV MaNGA: the "G-dwarf problem" revisited
in arXiv e-prints
Li Nan
(2020)
The impact of line-of-sight structures on measuring $H_0$ with strong lensing time-delays
in arXiv e-prints
Garilli B
(2021)
The VANDELS ESO public spectroscopic survey Final data release of 2087 spectra and spectroscopic measurements
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Mostoghiu R
(2021)
The Three Hundred Project: The stellar angular momentum evolution of cluster galaxies
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Afanasiev A
(2023)
The galaxy mass-size relation in CARLA clusters and proto-clusters at 1.4 < z < 2.8: Larger cluster galaxy sizes
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Jin S
(2021)
COALAS I. ATCA CO(1-0) survey and luminosity function in the Spiderweb protocluster at z = 2.16
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Hartke J
(2020)
The halo of M 105 and its group environment as traced by planetary nebula populations I. Wide-field photometric survey of planetary nebulae in the Leo I group
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Mei S
(2023)
Morphology-density relation, quenching, and mergers in CARLA clusters and protoclusters at 1.4 < z < 2.8
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Häußler B
(2022)
Galapagos-2/Galfitm/Gama - Multi-wavelength measurement of galaxy structure: Separating the properties of spheroid and disk components in modern surveys
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Markov V
(2020)
Massive molecular gas reservoir around the central AGN in the CARLA J1103 + 3449 cluster at z = 1.44
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Berta S
(2021)
Close-up view of a luminous star-forming galaxy at z = 2.95
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Ferris E
(2021)
The black hole masses of extremely luminous radio- WISE selected galaxies
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Buzzo M
(2021)
Recovering the origins of the lenticular galaxy NGC 3115 using multiband imaging
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Sampaio V
(2022)
From blue cloud to red sequence: evidence of morphological transition prior to star formation quenching
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Elmer E.
(2020)
Long-term NIR Variability in the UKIDSS Ultra Deep Survey: a new probe of AGN activity at high redshift.
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Kuchner U
(2022)
An inventory of galaxies in cosmic filaments feeding galaxy clusters: galaxy groups, backsplash galaxies, and pristine galaxies
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Fraser-McKelvie A
(2020)
SDSS-IV MaNGA: The link between bars and the early cessation of star formation in spiral galaxies
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Neumann J
(2020)
SDSS-IV MaNGA: spatially resolved star formation in barred galaxies
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Wang Y
(2022)
A stochastic model to reproduce the star formation history of individual galaxies in hydrodynamic simulations
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Gaikwad P
(2020)
Probing the thermal state of the intergalactic medium at z > 5 with the transmission spikes in high-resolution Ly a forest spectra
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Greener M
(2022)
SDSS-IV MaNGA: the chemical co-evolution of gas and stars in spiral galaxies
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Pearson J
(2021)
Strong lens modelling: comparing and combining Bayesian neural networks and parametric profile fitting
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Smail I
(2021)
An ALMA survey of the S2CLS UDS field: optically invisible submillimetre galaxies
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Yang C
(2020)
Erratum: The Herschel Bright Sources (HerBS): sample definition and SCUBA-2 observations
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Zhou S
(2023)
Are Milky-Way-like galaxies like the Milky Way? A view from SDSS-IV/MaNGA
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Peterken T
(2020)
SDSS-IV MaNGA : Excavating the fossil record of stellar populations in spiral galaxies
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Zhou S
(2024)
Where have all the low-metallicity galaxies gone? Tracing evolution in the mass-metallicity plane since a redshift of 0.7
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Contreras-Santos A
(2022)
The three hundred project: galaxy cluster mergers and their impact on the stellar component of brightest cluster galaxies
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Molaro M
(2022)
The effect of inhomogeneous reionization on the Lyman a forest power spectrum at redshift z > 4: implications for thermal parameter recovery
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Miller J
(2021)
Searching for the shadows of giants - II. The effect of local ionization on the Ly a absorption signatures of protoclusters at redshift z ~ 2.4
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Masters K
(2021)
Galaxy Zoo: 3D - crowdsourced bar, spiral, and foreground star masks for MaNGA target galaxies
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Molaro M
(2023)
Possible evidence for a large-scale enhancement in the Lyman-a forest power spectrum at redshift z = 4
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Maresca J
(2022)
Modelling high-resolution ALMA observations of strongly lensed dusty star-forming galaxies detected by Herschel
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Rost A
(2024)
The three hundred project: thermodynamical properties, shocks, and gas dynamics in simulated galaxy cluster filaments and their surroundings
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Cheng T
(2021)
Galaxy morphological classification catalogue of the Dark Energy Survey Year 3 data with convolutional neural networks
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Kotecha S
(2022)
Cosmic filaments delay quenching inside clusters
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Driver S
(2022)
Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): Data Release 4 and the z < 0.1 total and z < 0.08 morphological galaxy stellar mass functions
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Kim T
(2021)
The evolution of the low-density H i intergalactic medium from z = 3.6 to 0: data, transmitted flux, and H i column density,,
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Werner S
(2023)
Intracluster light in the core of z ~ 2 galaxy proto-clusters
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Pozzetti L
(2020)
The star formation histories of z ~ 1 post-starburst galaxies
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Cheng T
(2020)
Optimizing automatic morphological classification of galaxies with machine learning and deep learning using Dark Energy Survey imaging
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Sampaio V
(2023)
The co-evolution of strong AGN and central galaxies in different environments
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Bolton J
(2022)
Limits on non-canonical heating and turbulence in the intergalactic medium from the low redshift Lyman a forest
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Šoltinskí T
(2021)
The detectability of strong 21 centimetre forest absorbers from the diffuse intergalactic medium in late reionisation models
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Contreras-Santos A
(2022)
Galaxy pairs in the three hundred simulations: a study on the performance of observational pair-finding techniques
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Cornwell D
(2022)
Forecasting the success of the WEAVE Wide-Field Cluster Survey on the extraction of the cosmic web filaments around galaxy clusters
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Description | Euclid survey |
Organisation | European Space Agency |
Country | France |
Sector | Public |
PI Contribution | I co-led the legacy science, and lead an analysis of how galaxy morphologies can be measured in the survey |
Collaborator Contribution | I co-led the legacy science, writing papers, carrying out research |
Impact | Paper on joint analysis with LSST science - Scientific Synergy between LSST and Euclid |
Start Year | 2011 |
Description | SDSS Manga Survey |
Organisation | University of Chicago |
Country | United States |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | x |
Collaborator Contribution | x |
Impact | x |
Start Year | 2013 |
Description | SDSS-IV/MaNGA |
Organisation | Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-III) |
Department | Astrophysical Research Council |
Country | United States |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Financial contribution. Scientific expertise. Research activity. |
Collaborator Contribution | Access to observing facilities. Access to new survey data. Scientific expertise. Research activity. |
Impact | This is a very recent activity. No outputs so far, but the main outputs will be scientific papers. |
Start Year | 2013 |
Description | The 300 Collaboration |
Organisation | Autonomous University of Madrid |
Country | Spain |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Pearce and Gray are members of the Scientific Organising Committee and active members of the collaboration. |
Collaborator Contribution | Ongoing science collaboration |
Impact | Outputs listed elsewhere. |
Start Year | 2016 |
Description | The 300 Collaboration |
Organisation | University of Edinburgh |
Department | School of Physics and Astronomy |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Pearce and Gray are members of the Scientific Organising Committee and active members of the collaboration. |
Collaborator Contribution | Ongoing science collaboration |
Impact | Outputs listed elsewhere. |
Start Year | 2016 |
Description | The 300 Collaboration |
Organisation | University of Western Australia |
Country | Australia |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Pearce and Gray are members of the Scientific Organising Committee and active members of the collaboration. |
Collaborator Contribution | Ongoing science collaboration |
Impact | Outputs listed elsewhere. |
Start Year | 2016 |
Description | The Sherwood simulation project |
Organisation | University of Cambridge |
Department | MRC Cognitive Function and Ageing Study (CFAS) |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Project led by Bolton in Nottingham. |
Collaborator Contribution | Project led by Bolton in Nottingham. |
Impact | Outputs lsited elswhere. |
Start Year | 2016 |
Description | UKIRT Hemisphere Survey |
Organisation | University of Edinburgh |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Scientific collaboration and expertise |
Collaborator Contribution | Scientific collaboration and expertise |
Impact | Scientific papers |
Start Year | 2012 |
Description | VANDELS |
Organisation | University of Edinburgh |
Department | School of Physics and Astronomy |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Almaini is an active member of this consortium. |
Collaborator Contribution | Ongoing science collaboration. |
Impact | Outputs listed elsewhere. |
Start Year | 2014 |
Description | VANDELS |
Organisation | University of St Andrews |
Department | School of Physics and Astronomy |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Almaini is an active member of this consortium. |
Collaborator Contribution | Ongoing science collaboration. |
Impact | Outputs listed elsewhere. |
Start Year | 2014 |
Description | Inflativerse |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | Ongoing programme to take mobile planitarium to local Nottingham-area schools, targetting widening participation areas. During periods of the COVID pandemic where in-person visits were not possible, activities were undertaken online. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020,2021,2022,2023 |
URL | https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/astronomy/planetarium/Home.html |
Description | Public talks and lectures |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Multiple talks to school groups and astronomical societies, in person and online |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020,2021,2022,2023 |
Description | Sixty Ideas |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | Curated website for Sixty Symbols YouTube channel matched to A-level curriculum |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020,2021,2022 |
URL | http://nottingham.ac.uk/physics/sixtyideas |
Description | YouTube videos |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Created videos for Deep Sky Videos Youtube channel 250k subscribers 14 million video views since 2011 |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020,2021,2022,2023 |
URL | http://deepskyvideos.com |
Description | YouTube videos |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Participation in creating videos for YouTube channel Sixty Symbols. 876k subscribers 100 million video views since 2009 |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020,2021,2022,2023 |
URL | http://sixtysymbols.com |