A consolidated grant for Sheffield Astrophysics 2021-2024

Lead Research Organisation: University of Sheffield
Department Name: Physics and Astronomy

Abstract

The aim of this proposal is to support a programme of internationally excellent research in astrophysics at Sheffield, building on our recent research achievements, and tied to the exploitation of leading international facilities supported by STFC and UKSA.

Planned Impact

The main ways in which our research makes an impact outside the academic community is via our knowledge exchange and outreach activities. To summarise:

1. Knowledge exchange. This is primarily based on the building of the ULTRACAM and HiPERCAM instruments, which has led to the development of new CCD detectors, data acquisition and cooling systems, as well as stimulating a project to develop new additive manufacturing techniques in metal to build complex, rigid, lightweight components for astronomical instruments.

2. Outreach. The Sheffield astrophysics group give regular talks to schools and general audiences. We also give regular in-house masterclasses and workshops to school students and teachers. Over the last five years, members of the group have delivered more than 112 such talks/events, and been involved in 19 press releases, all based on their research activities.

Details are given in our attached Pathways to Impact document.

Publications

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Stringer J (2021) Optical photometry of two transitional millisecond pulsars in the radio pulsar state in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Hodgkin S (2021) Gaia Early Data Release 3 Gaia photometric science alerts in Astronomy & Astrophysics

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Pelisoli I (2021) Optical detection of the rapidly spinning white dwarf in V1460 Her in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Dhillon V (2021) HiPERCAM: a quintuple-beam, high-speed optical imager on the 10.4-m Gran Telescopio Canarias in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Burhanudin U (2021) Light-curve classification with recurrent neural networks for GOTO: dealing with imbalanced data in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Paice J (2021) The evolution of rapid optical/X-ray timing correlations in the initial hard state of MAXI J1820+070 in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Duffy C (2021) Evidence that short-period AM CVn systems are diverse in outburst behaviour in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society