Astronomy and Astrophysics Group
The Astronomy and Astrophysics group at Warwick is one of the newest additions to the Department of Physics, beginning life in September 2003 with the appointment of Prof Tom Marsh. We are interested in stars and planets, how they live and how they die, and the exotic physical processes that they allow us to explore. We are an observational group and make use of a wide range of ground-based telescopes, such as ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT)
in Chile and the Isaac Newton Group of telescopes (ING) in the Canary Islands, as well as space telescopes such as NASA's Chandra and ESA's XMM-Newton X-ray observatories and the Hubble Space Telescope.
The objects we study are dynamic and can change within minutes, seconds and even milli-seconds. We specialise in the high-speed data acquisition and analysis techniques needed to track them. Members of the group have contributed to the development and exploitation of the ULTRACAM high-speed photometer, and the Wide Angle Search for Planets project (WASP).
News
3 May 2012:
Using the Hubble Space Telescope, members of the Warwick Astronomy group have measured the chemical abundances of planetary debris around white dwarfs, finding that the debris is mainly composed of Si, O, Mg, and Fe, and strongly depleted in C. This abundance pattern is very similar to that of the bulk Earth, demonstrating that the debris discs are made up of rocky material, the left-over of a planetary system that once orbited the progenitor of the white dwarf. Read the Warwick press release, or the paper on arXiv.
28 Feb 2012: The initial data release catalogues of our Kepler INT survey are now available. The KIS survey is a deep 5-filter optical survey of the Kepler field, obtained with the Isaac Newton Telescope by the IPHAS and UVEX survey teams.
Tidal Disruption of a star (University of Warwick/Mark Garlick)
16 June 2011: Writing in the journal Science, an international team led by Warwick astronomer Andrew Levan have shown that a luminous gamma-ray and X-ray event originates from the nucleus of a distant galaxy, from the shredding of a star by the supermassive black hole at the galaxy core. Full details can be found at the here, and the paper can be read online at Science.
25 May 2011: Discovery of the most distant explosion. Members of the Warwick Astronomy group have found the most distant explosion, possibly the most distant object, ever seen. The event, a gamma-ray burst named GRB 090429B appears to lie at a redshift of 9.4, or a distance of 13.16 billion light years, 96% of the way back to the big bang. More information can be found at here and the preprint can be found at arXiv.
25 May 2011: A deeply eclipsing double-white dwarf binary. Warwick astronomers have discovered a binary star which is made up of two white dwarfs that undergo mutual eclipses every 2.78 hours. This star, dubbed CSS 41177, is only the second eclipsing system found so far among the ~50 known double-white binairies. Because accurate stellar masses and radii can only be measured in eclipsing binaries, CSS 41177 provides an excellent opportunity for testing, and improving, our understanding of the structure of white dwarfs. The current data demonstrates that both white dwarfs in CSS 41177 have a core made out of helium. Over the next ~1Gyr, the orbital period of CSS 41177 will decrease because of the emission of gravitational wave radiation, and eventually the two white dwarfs will merge. As their combined mass is below the Chandrasekhar limit, they will not detonate, but form a subdwarf star, that will finally evolve into a single, rather massive white dwarf. See the Warwick press releases for more info and read the full article on arXiv.
4 Jan 2011: A warm welcome to Elizabeth Stanway, who joins the astronomy and astrophysics group as assistant professor. Elizabeth has a strong programme of research studying high redshift galaxies.
9 December 2010: Discovery of first carbon-rich planet reported in Nature this week.
Warwick astronomer Peter Wheatley has contributed to the discovery that the atmosphere of the exoplanet WASP-12b is dominated by molecules containing carbon, such as methane, while oxygen-based molecules such as water are missing. The discovery shows that there is a much greater diversity in planet composition that previously expected. Rocky planets with a similar composition could have mountain ranges made of diamonds, while minerals such as sand, that are common on Earth, would be very rare. Read the Nature article, the open-access version on arXiv, or listen to a BBC local radio interview with Peter Wheatley.
Very Large Telescope (VLT), ESO, Chile
Hubble Space Telescope (NASA/ESA)
