Support of the Astronomical Research in the Cavendish Astrophysics Group

这项研究的目的是承担和回答关于宇宙及其历史的基本问题。与此同时，我们将开发新的技术和工具来帮助回答未来的问题。我们解决了天体物理学中的许多前沿问题。这些问题包括：宇宙是如何变成现在的样子的？是什么过程导致了宇宙中最大的结构的发展？导致今天存在的星系和星系团的种子条件是什么？我们可以通过观察宇宙微波背景辐射(CMBR)来研究这些问题，宇宙微波背景辐射是在大爆炸后不久发出的无线电波。我们工作的一部分是研究波，以找出宇宙存在的第一小部分形成的结构的印记。我们还可以通过寻找星系团在CMBR上投射的“阴影”来发现最早形成的星系团。天文学的巨大进步来自于新技术的引入，我们希望继续开拓干涉测量技术的应用。这种成像技术最初是在我们射电天文学小组中开发的，但我们现在正在为可见光波长的天文学开发它。这项工作将完成干涉仪的开发，它将能够看到恒星和星系中心的细节，而这些细节是任何其他方式都看不到的。我们还旨在通过开发技术来促进干涉测量在射电天文学中的使用，使干涉望远镜能够在给定的时间观察更多的天空。这在广泛的天文学研究中都有应用。我们的目标是通过使用可以在恒星形成的早期阶段观测到大量恒星的仪器，来回答恒星是如何形成的基本问题。我们还计划使用未来几年将上线的望远镜，以前所未有的细节观察其他太阳系中恒星和行星的形成。通过使用最近开发的望远镜数据，我们将开始观察星系和星系团中的磁场是如何结构的。这将使我们能够看到磁性在这些地区所起的作用。

This research is aimed at undertaking and answering fundamental questions about the universe and its history. At the same time we will develop new techniques and instruments to help answer future questions. We address many of the frontier questions in astrophysics. These include: how did the universe get to be how it is? What were the processes that led to the development of the largest structures in the universe? What were the seed conditions that led to galaxies and clusters of galaxies existing today? We can study these questions by looking at the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR), radio waves which were emitted soon after the 'Big Bang'. Part of our work is to study the waves to find the imprints of structure formed in the first fraction of a second of the universe's existence. We can also find the earliest forming clusters of galaxies by looking for the 'shadows' they cast on the CMBR. Big advances in astronomy come from the introduction of new techniques, and we want to continue to pioneer the application of the technique of interferometry. This imaging technique was initially developed in our group of radio astronomy, but we are now developing it for astronomy at visible wavelengths. This work will complete the development of an interferometer which will be able to see details in stars and the centres of galaxies which cannot be seen in any other way. We also aim to advance the use of interferometry in radio astronomy by developing techniques to allow interferometric telescopes to observe more of the sky at a given time. This has applications in a wide range of astronomy research. We aim to answer fundamental questions about how stars are formed, by using instruments which can see large numbers of stars at early stages of formation. We also plan to use telescopes which are coming on line in the next few years to see the formation of stars and planets in other solar systems in unprecedented detail. By using data from recently developed telescopes, we will start looking at how magnetic fields are structured in galaxies and within clusters of galaxies. This will allow us to look at the role played by magnetism in these regions.