PATT-linked grant for Warwick Astronomy & Astrophysics Group, April 2021 to March 2023

与 PATT 相关的沃里克天文学资助

• 批准号: ST/V005731/1
• 负责人: Thomas Marsh
• 金额: $ 3.87万
• 依托单位: University of Warwick
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2021 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ST%2FV005731%2F1
• 关键词: PATT; linked; grant; Warwick; Astronomy

At the end of their lives stars settle into one of three possible final compact states known as white dwarfs, neutron stars or black-holes. All three of these are incredibly dense by our standards, so much so that to a neutron star, matter at Earth-like densities is barely different from a vacuum. Many examples of such objects are known, and they are often highly active as they can be so closely paired up with other stars that we can see the effects of gas transferring from one star to the compact object. In such a process gas is heated to many millions of degrees, making these object efficient X-ray sources. Both white dwarfs and neutron stars can show explosive effects as material accreting onto them sparks into uncontrollable nuclear fusion, generating vast amounts of energy within seconds or minutes. Such explosions can light up the furthest reaches of the Universe to reveal the history of the build up of structures in the Universe. Our work centres on trying to understand such processes and how the various objects that we see relate to one another. The purpose of this grant is to support the travel needed to observe these objects on ground-based telescopes where we carry out observations of the high-speed processes that occur as material crashes onto these remarkable objects. The grant will also support work on exoplanets, where high-precision measurements of brightness and velocity are essential to the measurements of the masses and radii of planets required to understand the nature of planets far beyond our Solar System. Increasingly today such observations can be carried out at a distance across the internet, but there is still a need to be at the telescope wher one can most easily react to changing cirumstances, and data rates in some observing programs are too high to be effectively undertaken at a distance.

在生命结束时，恒星会进入三种可能的最终致密状态之一，即白矮星、中子星或黑洞。按照我们的标准，这三个物质的密度都令人难以置信，以至于对于中子星来说，密度与地球相似的物质与真空几乎没有什么不同。此类天体的许多例子是已知的，它们通常非常活跃，因为它们可以与其他恒星如此紧密地配对，以至于我们可以看到气体从一颗恒星转移到致密天体的影响。在这样的过程中，气体被加热到数百万度，使这些物体成为高效的 X 射线源。白矮星和中子星都会表现出爆炸效应，因为吸积到它们上的物质会引发无法控制的核聚变，在几秒钟或几分钟内产生大量能量。这种爆炸可以照亮宇宙最远的地方，揭示宇宙结构形成的历史。我们的工作重点是试图理解这些过程以及我们看到的各种物体如何相互关联。这笔赠款的目的是支持在地面望远镜上观察这些物体所需的旅行，我们在地面望远镜上对物质撞击到这些非凡物体上时发生的高速过程进行观测。这笔赠款还将支持系外行星的工作，其中亮度和速度的高精度测量对于测量行星质量和半径至关重要，以了解远离太阳系的行星的性质。如今，此类观测越来越多地可以通过互联网远距离进行，但仍然需要在望远镜旁进行，这样人们才能最容易地对不断变化的环境做出反应，而且某些观测项目的数据速率太高而无法有效进行在一定距离处。