Warwick Astronomy and Astrophysics Consolidated Grant 2017-2020

华威天文学和天体物理学综合赠款 2017-2020

• 批准号: ST/P000495/1
• 负责人: Thomas Marsh
• 金额: $ 195.26万
• 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: 2017
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2017 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ST%2FP000495%2F1
• 关键词: Warwick; Astronomy; Astrophysics; Consolidated; Grant

What powers the most violent explosions in the Universe? What kind of galaxies host them? How do they relate to more normal galaxies? How do stars interact with each other in binary systems? When such stars spiral together, can we detect the tiny ripples in space-time that Einstein predicted and can we detect any light from such events? What are planets around other stars like? How many are there? What are they made of? These questions, which range from near neighbours in our Galaxy to the furthest reaches of the observable Universe, are those that the Warwick Astronomy and Astrophysics group will investigate. We will do so with a mixture of observations using ground- and space-based telescopes, theoretical developments and computationally-intensive numerical modelling. Although most of the Universe lies far beyond our direct reach, our understanding of physics allows us to extrapolate into regimes of unimaginable temperatures, densities, velocities and magnetic fields. Nevertheless, just as the most powerful computers can only forecast the weather for a few days in advance, the equations governing celestial objects can be formidably complex to solve, and we need observations to guide us. Starting in our backyard, a little over 20 years ago, the only planets we knew about were the planets of our own Solar System. Today, we know of more than 1000 planets around other stars, many of them extraordinarily different from our near neighbours. Warwick is the lead institute in a European collaboration to implement a new survey for Neptune-sized planets. The survey is based upon the decrease of light as the planets blocks light from the star. These are the most interesting planets to find because they allow us to measure both the mass and size of the planet. For a particular mass, the size of a planet depends upon its interior properties, opening up the remarkable possibility of probing the interiors of planets light-years from Earth. Incredibly, there is a more direct method still: we now know of dense, dead stars called white dwarfs which are surrounded by dusty disks of planetary building materials. As this material rains down onto the white dwarf, it is vaporised, allowing us to measure what it is made of. White dwarfs are usually highly stable, but very rarely, if enough matter is dumped onto them as can occur when they have a nearby companion in a binary system, they explode through uncontrolled nuclear fusion. This tears the entire star apart within a few seconds, in the process producing one of the optically-brightest explosions known along with most of the iron in the present day Universe. We are interested in understanding how these rare events come about. Such "supernovae" are so rare that we have to look beyond our own Galaxy to find them, and that is where even rarer and more exotic cataclysms are seen. The brightest explosions of all are the Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs), which are rare, but so bright that they can be seen more than 10 billion light-years away in the distant Universe. Remarkably for such dramatic events, there seem to be multiple ways for them to occur. We aim to understand their underlying cause. Surprisingly, the most powerful events of all may be very dim to our eyes: when a pair of black-holes orbits one another, they spiral-in because of the emission of energy through "gravitational waves", ripples in fabric of space. Physicists are on the verge of sensing these with exotic arrangements of lasers and mirrors designed to pick up tiny perturbations of length. We want to *see* such events, a tough challenge because our gravitational wave "eyes" are poor at pinning down locations on the sky and the events may be very dim. Supernovae, GRBs and merging black-holes come from stars residing in galaxies. To understand them, we need to understand galaxies, how they form stars and how they evolve over the 13 billion year history of the Universe.

宇宙中最猛烈的爆炸是什么力量？什么样的星系拥有它们？它们与更正常的星系有什么关系？双星系统中的恒星是如何相互作用的？当这样的恒星螺旋聚集在一起时，我们能探测到爱因斯坦预测的时空中的微小涟漪吗？我们能探测到来自这些事件的任何光线吗？其他恒星周围的行星是什么样的？有多少人？它们是什么做的？这些问题，从我们银河系的近邻到可观测宇宙的最远端，都是沃里克天文学和天体物理学小组将要研究的问题。我们将使用地面和空间望远镜进行观测，理论发展和计算密集型数值建模。虽然宇宙的大部分远超出我们的直接接触范围，但我们对物理学的理解使我们能够推断出难以想象的温度，密度，速度和磁场。然而，正如最强大的计算机只能提前几天预报天气一样，控制天体的方程可能非常复杂，我们需要观察来指导我们。从我们的后院开始，20多年前，我们所知道的唯一行星是我们太阳系的行星。今天，我们知道有超过1000颗行星围绕着其他恒星，其中许多行星与我们的近邻非常不同。沃里克是欧洲合作的主要研究所，对海王星大小的行星进行新的调查。这项调查是基于行星阻挡来自星星的光线而导致的光线减少。这些是最有趣的行星，因为它们使我们能够测量行星的质量和大小。对于一个特定的质量，行星的大小取决于它的内部性质，这为探测距离地球光年的行星内部提供了巨大的可能性。令人难以置信的是，还有一种更直接的方法：我们现在知道了被称为白色矮星的致密死亡恒星，它们被行星建筑材料的尘埃盘所包围。当这些物质如雨般落在白色矮星上时，它被蒸发了，这使我们能够测量它是由什么组成的。白色矮星通常是高度稳定的，但在极少数情况下，如果有足够的物质倾倒在它们身上，当它们在一个双星系统中有一个附近的伴星时，它们会通过不受控制的核聚变爆炸。这在几秒钟内将整个星星撕裂，在这个过程中产生了一个光学上最明亮的爆炸，沿着当今宇宙中的大部分铁。我们有兴趣了解这些罕见事件是如何发生的。这样的“超新星”是如此罕见，以至于我们必须超越我们自己的银河系才能找到它们，而这就是我们看到的更罕见和更奇特的灾难。所有爆炸中最明亮的是伽马射线暴（GRB），这是罕见的，但如此明亮，以至于在遥远的宇宙中可以看到超过100亿光年。值得注意的是，这些戏剧性的事件似乎有多种方式发生。我们的目标是了解其根本原因。令人惊讶的是，所有最强大的事件对我们的眼睛来说可能是非常模糊的：当一对黑洞相互绕轨道运行时，它们会因为通过“引力波”发射的能量而螺旋式地进入，引力波是空间结构中的涟漪。物理学家们即将通过激光器和反射镜的奇特排列来检测这些，这些排列旨在拾取微小的长度扰动。我们希望看到这样的事件，这是一个坚韧的挑战，因为我们的引力波“眼睛”在确定天空中的位置方面很差，而且这些事件可能非常暗淡。超新星、GRB和合并黑洞来自星系中的恒星。为了理解它们，我们需要了解星系，它们如何形成恒星，以及它们如何在宇宙130亿年的历史中演变。

项目成果

LRG-BEASTS: Sodium absorption and Rayleigh scattering in the atmosphere of WASP-94A b using NTT/EFOSC2

LRG-BEASTS：使用 NTT/EFOSC2 在 WASP-94A b 大气中进行钠吸收和瑞利散射

• DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stab3805
• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
• 影响因子: 4.8
• 作者: Ahrer E

LRG-BEASTS: evidence for clouds in the transmission spectrum of HATS-46 b

LRG-BEASTS：HATS-46 b 透射光谱中存在云的证据

• DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stad779
• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
• 影响因子: 4.8
• 作者: Ahrer E

Early Release Science of the exoplanet WASP-39b with JWST NIRCam.

• DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05590-4
• 发表时间: 2023-03
• 期刊: NATURE
• 影响因子: 64.8
• 作者: Ahrer, Eva-Maria;Stevenson, Kevin B.;Mansfield, Megan;Moran, Sarah E.;Brande, Jonathan;Morello, Giuseppe;Murray, Catriona A.;Nikolov, Nikolay K.;de la Roche, Dominique J. M. Petit Dit;Schlawin, Everett;Wheatley, Peter J.;Zieba, Sebastian;Batalha, Natasha E.;Damiano, Mario;Goyal, Jayesh M.;Lendl, Monika;Lothringer, Joshua D.;Mukherjee, Sagnick;Ohno, Kazumasa;Batalha, Natalie M.;Battley, Matthew P.;Bean, Jacob L.;Beatty, Thomas G.;Benneke, Bjorn;Berta-Thompson, Zachory K.;Carter, Aarynn L.;Cubillos, Patricio E.;Daylan, Tansu;Espinoza, Nestor;Gao, Peter;Gibson, Neale P.;Gill, Samuel;Harrington, Joseph;Hu, Renyu;Kreidberg, Laura;Lewis, Nikole K.;Line, Michael R.;Lopez-Morales, Mercedes;Parmentier, Vivien;Powell, Diana K.;Sing, David K.;Tsai, Shang-Min;Wakeford, Hannah R.;Welbanks, Luis;Alam, Munazza K.;Alderson, Lili;Allen, Natalie H.;Anderson, David R.;Barstow, Joanna K.;Bayliss, Daniel;Bell, Taylor J.;Blecic, Jasmina;Bryant, Edward M.;Burleigh, Matthew R.;Carone, Ludmila;Casewell, S. L.;Changeat, Quentin;Chubb, Katy L.;Crossfield, Ian J. M.;Crouzet, Nicolas;Decin, Leen;Desert, Jean-Michel;Feinstein, Adina D.;Flagg, Laura;Fortney, Jonathan J.;Gizis, John E.;Heng, Kevin;Iro, Nicolas;Kempton, Eliza M. -R.;Kendrew, Sarah;Kirk, James;Knutson, Heather A.;Komacek, Thaddeus D.;Lagage, Pierre-Olivier;Leconte, Jeremy;Lustig-Yaeger, Jacob;MacDonald, Ryan J.;Mancini, Luigi;May, E. M.;Mayne, N. J.;Miguel, Yamila;Mikal-Evans, Thomas;Molaverdikhani, Karan;Palle, Enric;Piaulet, Caroline;Rackham, Benjamin V.;Redfield, Seth;Rogers, Laura K.;Roy, Pierre-Alexis;Rustamkulov, Zafar;Shkolnik, Evgenya L.;Sotzen, Kristin S.;Taylor, Jake;Tremblin, P.;Tucker, Gregory S.;Turner, Jake D.;de Val-Borro, Miguel;Venot, Olivia;Zhang, Xi
• 通讯作者: Zhang, Xi

NGTS J214358.5-380102 - NGTS discovery of the most eccentric known eclipsing M-dwarf binary system

NGTS J214358.5-380102 - NGTS 发现已知最古怪的食 M 矮星双星系统

• DOI: 10.1093/mnras/staa928
• 发表时间: 2020
• 期刊: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
• 影响因子: 4.8
• 作者: Acton J

NGTS J214358.5-380102 -- NGTS discovery of the most eccentric known eclipsing M-Dwarf binary system

NGTS J214358.5-380102 -- NGTS 发现已知最古怪的食 M-矮星双星系统

• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2003.14314
• 发表时间: 2020
• 作者: Acton J