Visiting Fellowships at Durham

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This application seeks support to continue the successful visitors programme that we have conducted at Durham since 1983. This application covers the entire spectrum of astronomical research at Durham which includes theoretical cosmology, extragalactic astronomy, astronomical instrumentation, gamma-ray astronomy and high energy astrophysics. The current grant has supported 144 visitors over a 2.5 year period and had led to 85 joint refereed publications involving Durham researchers and visitors. Examples of research projects involving visitors are: the Virgo Consortium's programme of N-body and gasdynamic simulations of the formation of structure in the universe; theoretical modelling of galaxy formation; observational studies of young massive galaxies undergoing huge starbursts; theoretical and observational studies of gas at high redshift; investigation of accretion processes onto black holes of a wide range of sizes, from a few to a billion solar masses; the effects of the growth of supermassive black holes on forming galaxies; observations of groups and clusters at early stages of formation; the detection and interpretation of very high energy gamma rays from exotic objects including microquasars; the design of new instruments for existing telescopes like the Very Large Telescope and future ones like the Extremely Large Telescope.