Imperial College Astrophysics: Consolidated Grant 2012-2014

帝国理工学院天体物理学：综合补助金 2012-2014

基本信息

批准号：
ST/J001368/1
负责人：
Andrew Jaffe
金额：
$ 47.23万
依托单位：
Imperial College London
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Research Grant
财政年份：
2012
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2012 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ST%2FJ001368%2F1
关键词：
Imperial College Astrophysics Consolidated Grant

项目摘要

Imperial College Astrophysics uses data from the most sophisticated astronomical instruments in the world and in space to understand some of the most important scientific questions of the day: - What is the universe made of and how does it evolve? - How do galaxies, stars and planets form and evolve?To address these questions, we must confront the data with sophisticated models for the overall structure of the Universe as well as its constituents.On the very largest scales, we will be using the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), photons which last interacted with other matter only 400,000 years after the big bang. The CMB gives us a snapshot of the early Universe when it was hot, dense and simple. Combined with our understanding of the physical laws, our observations give us a wealth of information about the Universe on its largest scales: we can test the so-called Copernican Principle, our assumption of the isotropy of the Universe. We can also observe the effects of cosmological inflation, an early period of accelerated expansion thought to be responsible for the distribution of matter in the Universe. Similarly, data such as observations of distant supernovae will allow us to map the expansion of the Universe slightly closer to home, roughly half way to the surface probed by the CMB.Combining these data with information from other telescopes and experiments such as the LHC at CERN, we can probe the fundamental constituents of matter, and identify the dark matter which accounts for roughly fives times more matter in the Universe than the atoms we are made of.Armed with these models of particle physics and cosmology, we have the necessary background to understand the evolution of galaxies and the stars within them, probed using large surveys with ground and space-based telescopes. The Herschel Space Observatory is the most sensitive instrument capable of observing the roughly 50% of all photons in the Universe that are emitted by the dust that lurks between the stars of most galaxies (dust that itself is produced by earlier generations of stars in those same galaxies). By understanding the processes responsible for this radiation we can build a picture of the assembly of galaxies like our own Milky Way.Large surveys of the sky also give us a potential window for finding extreme objects: the most distant, or most massive, or coldest objects that lurk at the outskirts of our data. However, finding them requires not only lots of data, but also robust statistical techniques to sift through them. These techniques have already found the most distant quasar and we are poised to find yet more unusual objects in new datasets.

帝国理工学院天体物理学使用来自世界上和太空中最复杂的天文仪器的数据来理解当今一些最重要的科学问题： - 宇宙是由什么组成的以及它是如何演化的？ - 星系、恒星和行星是如何形成和演化的？为了解决这些问题，我们必须使用宇宙整体结构及其组成部分的复杂模型来面对数据。在最大的尺度上，我们将使用宇宙模型微波背景 (CMB)，即大爆炸后 40 万年最后一次与其他物质相互作用的光子。宇宙微波背景为我们提供了早期宇宙的快照，当时它是热的、稠密的和简单的。结合我们对物理定律的理解，我们的观测为我们提供了有关宇宙最大尺度的大量信息：我们可以测试所谓的哥白尼原理，即我们对宇宙各向同性的假设。我们还可以观察宇宙膨胀的影响，这是加速膨胀的早期阶段，被认为是宇宙中物质分布的原因。同样，对遥远超新星的观测等数据将使我们能够绘制出离家稍近的宇宙膨胀图，大约是宇宙微波背景辐射探测到的表面的一半。将这些数据与来自其他望远镜和实验（例如大型强子对撞机）的信息结合起来。 CERN，我们可以探测物质的基本成分，并识别暗物质，它在宇宙中所占的物质大约是组成我们的原子的五倍。有了这些粒子物理和宇宙学模型，我们就有了必要的背景去理解星系及其内部恒星的演化，通过地面和天基望远镜的大型调查进行探测。赫歇尔太空天文台是最灵敏的仪器，能够观测宇宙中大约 50% 的光子，这些光子是由潜伏在大多数星系恒星之间的尘埃发射的（尘埃本身是由同一星系中的前几代恒星产生的）星系）。通过了解造成这种辐射的过程，我们可以绘制出像我们自己的银河系这样的星系集合的图片。对天空的大规模观测也为我们提供了寻找极端物体的潜在窗口：最遥远的、或最大的、或最冷的天体潜伏在我们数据外围的对象。然而，找到它们不仅需要大量数据，还需要强大的统计技术来筛选它们。这些技术已经找到了最遥远的类星体，我们准备在新数据集中找到更多不寻常的物体。