Astrophysics Research at Liverpool John Moores University: Newly Appointed Academic Staff

这笔赠款将允许最近受雇于天体物理研究所的六名新学术人员在他们适应利物浦的新学术环境时开展他们世界领先的研究。这些新工作人员感兴趣的领域与ARI现有的科学优势大体一致，即：恒星的起源；星系的化学组成；银河系的观测和理论研究；对星系团的大型宇宙流体动力学模拟；确定超新星物理性质的理论研究。在恒星起源的标题下，我们将研究银河系中形成的初始恒星质量如何随环境变化。对巨型恒星形成区气体的观测将被用来确定接近单个恒星大小的尺度上的关键物理性质。我们将对银河系盘状和凸起中的近100万颗恒星进行重大光谱调查。这项由斯隆基金会部分支助的重大遗产调查(远地点)及其后续调查(远地点2号)将对下列问题产生重大影响：银河系盘状和隆起区域的化学成分；球状星团的起源；是否有证据表明存在第一代(人口III)恒星。我们还将在超级计算机上对银河系进行宇宙流体动力学模拟，以提供对银河系合并历史的匹配和高分辨率预测，以与即将到来的GAIA卫星任务的观测结果进行比较，GAIA卫星任务将提供银河系的3D地图。我们的银河系外化学组成工作集中在一种新技术上，使用红超巨星来测量附近星系的元素丰度。通过研究物理关系，例如星系中心质量和金属丰度之间的关系，或者星系内部的丰度梯度，我们将对星系的形成和演化过程做出重要的见解。我们将在最大尺度上对星系团进行宇宙学模拟，包括所有已知的反馈机制，以便提供具有代表性的模拟星系团样本。模拟结果将被纳入正在进行的不同波长的星系团调查的实际观测中(包括ARI大量参与的XMM-星系团调查)，以便对星系团中的宇宙学参数和物理条件做出公正的估计。我们将使用正在进行的大型瞬变观测数据来研究超新星的爆发特性，探索SN特性与其前身之间的关系，以及寻找新类型的瞬变。特别是，我们将研究一大批SNIa型超新星，并研究违反正常行为的“极端”事件，以改进它们作为宇宙距离指示器的用途。我们的所有研究都使用最先进的地面望远镜、卫星和数据分析技术来进行观测，包括在ALMA和VLT上的KMOS多目标光谱仪等新启用设施上的望远镜时间，以及GAIA等空间任务。新的工作人员领导国际一级的计划，这些计划在技术上也很苛刻，并为下一代望远镜及其仪器的设计和运行提供资料，如E-ELT(EAGLE/EVE)、利物浦望远镜和WHT(WEAVE)。

This grant will allow six new academic staff, recently employed in the Astrophysics Research Institute, to carry out their World-leading research as they settle into their new academic environment in Liverpool. The areas of interest of these new staff broadly align with the existing scientific strengths of the ARI, namely: the origin of stars; the chemical composition of galaxies; observational and theoretical studies of the Milky Way; large cosmological hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy clusters; theoretical studies to determine the physical properties of supernovae. Under the heading of the origin of stars, we will investigate how the initial masses of stars forming in the Galaxy change with environment. Observations of the gas in giant star-forming regions will be used to determine key physical properties on scales close to the size of individual stars. We will carry out a major spectroscopic survey of nearly 1 million stars in the disc and bulge of the Milky Way. This major legacy survey (APOGEE) and its successor (APOGEE-2), partly supported by the Sloan Foundation, will have major impact on questions such as: the chemical composition of the disc and bulge regions of the galaxy; the origin of globular clusters and whether there is evidence for the very first generation (population III) stars. We will also carry out cosmological hydrodynamic simulations of the Milky Way on supercomputers to provide well-matched and high resolution predictions of the merger history of the galaxy to compare with the observations from the forthcoming Gaia satellite mission, which will provide a 3D map of the Milky Way.Our extragalactic chemical composition work focuses on a new technique, using Red Supergiant Stars, to measure the element abundances in nearby galaxies. By examining physical relationships, such as the correlation between a galaxy's central mass and metallicity, or the abundance gradients within galaxies, we will make important insights into the processes of galaxy formation and evolution. On the largest scales we will carry out cosmological simulations of galaxy clusters, including all known feedback mechanisms, in order to provide representative samples of mock clusters. Simulation results will be incorporated into real observations from on-going cluster surveys at different wavelengths (including the XMM-Cluster Survey, in which the ARI is heavily involved) in order to make unbiased estimates of the cosmological parameters and physical conditions in the clusters. We will investigate the outburst properties of supernovae using data from large on-going transient surveys and explore the relationship between the properties of the SN and its progenitor, as well as searching for new types of transients. In particular we will examine a large population of type SN Ia supernovae and study "extreme" events which violate normal behaviour in order to improve their use as cosmological distance indicators. All of our research uses the most advanced ground-based telescopes, satellites and data analysis techniques to carry out observations, including telescope time on newly commissioned facilities such as ALMA and the KMOS multi-object spectrograph on the VLT, along with space missions such as Gaia. The new staff lead programmes at the international level, which are also technically demanding and feed into the design and operation of the next generation of telescopes and their instruments, such as the E-ELT (EAGLE/EVE), Liverpool Telescope and WHT (WEAVE).