UCL Astrophysics Consolidated Grant 2021-2024

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The research we conduct in the UCL Astrophysics Group encompasses all the big questions of modern Astrophysics and on all scales, from exoplanets to the entire Universe. We have leading roles in large, international projects which are gathering data for millions of stars and galaxies. Our overall goals are to (1) analyse these data to answer fundamental questions about the Universe, (2) develop the theory and models that enable the interpretation for these data, and (3) produce the technologies making these state-of-the-art facilities a reality. We propose a programme of ten science projects, divided in five themes covering the full range of topics studied within our group: Exoplanets, Galactic Astrophysics, Extragalactic Astrophysics, Cosmology and Instrumentation. By the nature of our group, most of this work is observational; one of our keys to success is the close interaction between our instrumentation and science groups, allowing us direct access to large international projects. Our observational projects make use of facilities such as eMERLIN, the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT), the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), and Euclid. With these facilities, we will study debris disks around white dwarf stars, the most massive stars in our Galaxy as well as some of the most massive galaxies in the early Universe, investigate the connection between galaxies and their dark matter halos, and answer fundamental questions in our cosmological model. We also propose two projects that are theoretical and numerical in nature, both concerned with the molecules that make up the atmospheres of exoplanets and the birth clouds of stars. In addition, we present an outreach case, designed to enable us to disseminate to the public the specific outputs of the research to be funded by this grant.