PATT-linked grant for Warwick Astronomy & Astrophysics Group, April 2021 to March 2023

在生命的末期，恒星会进入三种可能的致密状态，即白矮星、中子星或黑洞。按照我们的标准，这三种物质的密度都令人难以置信，以至于对于一颗中子星来说，密度与地球相似的物质与真空几乎没有什么不同。这类天体的许多例子都是已知的，它们通常非常活跃，因为它们可以与其他恒星如此紧密地配对，以至于我们可以看到气体从一颗恒星转移到致密天体的效果。在这样的过程中，气体被加热到数百万度，使这些物体成为高效的X射线源。白矮星和中子星都可以表现出爆炸效应，因为物质在它们上面吸积成不可控的核聚变，在几秒钟或几分钟内产生大量能量。这样的爆炸可以照亮宇宙的最远端，以揭示宇宙结构建立的历史。我们的工作重点是试图理解这样的过程，以及我们所看到的各种物体是如何相互联系的。这笔赠款的目的是支持在地面望远镜上观察这些天体所需的旅行，在那里我们对材料撞击这些引人注目的天体时发生的高速过程进行观测。这笔赠款还将支持系外行星方面的工作，在系外行星上，高精度的亮度和速度测量对于测量行星的质量和半径至关重要，这是了解太阳系以外行星的性质所必需的。如今，这样的观测越来越多地可以通过互联网进行远程观测，但仍然需要在望远镜前，人们可以最容易地对变化的环境做出反应，而且一些观测项目的数据率太高，无法有效地进行远程观测。

At the end of their lives stars settle into one of three possible final compact states known as white dwarfs, neutron stars or black-holes. All three of these are incredibly dense by our standards, so much so that to a neutron star, matter at Earth-like densities is barely different from a vacuum. Many examples of such objects are known, and they are often highly active as they can be so closely paired up with other stars that we can see the effects of gas transferring from one star to the compact object. In such a process gas is heated to many millions of degrees, making these object efficient X-ray sources. Both white dwarfs and neutron stars can show explosive effects as material accreting onto them sparks into uncontrollable nuclear fusion, generating vast amounts of energy within seconds or minutes. Such explosions can light up the furthest reaches of the Universe to reveal the history of the build up of structures in the Universe. Our work centres on trying to understand such processes and how the various objects that we see relate to one another. The purpose of this grant is to support the travel needed to observe these objects on ground-based telescopes where we carry out observations of the high-speed processes that occur as material crashes onto these remarkable objects. The grant will also support work on exoplanets, where high-precision measurements of brightness and velocity are essential to the measurements of the masses and radii of planets required to understand the nature of planets far beyond our Solar System. Increasingly today such observations can be carried out at a distance across the internet, but there is still a need to be at the telescope wher one can most easily react to changing cirumstances, and data rates in some observing programs are too high to be effectively undertaken at a distance.