REVEALING THE STRUCTURE OF THE UNIVERSE: GRAVITATIONAL WAVES, COSMOLOGY AND EXOPLANETS

这是一项雄心勃勃的提议，旨在促进我们对宇宙结构的理解，利用最新的STFC引力波观测计划，宇宙微波背景，星系调查和系外行星。我们的主要目标是：1.我们将使用最新的星系调查数据（暗能量调查）以及宇宙微波背景图（大爆炸遗留下来的残余辐射）来调查宇宙中物质的统计数据。确定这些统计数据是否是高斯分布（服从正态分布），我们将能够更好地理解引力坍缩，并从早期宇宙中寻找原始信号，测试星系起源的理论。在这个项目中，我们将开发新的方法来研究CMB透镜，大爆炸遗留光的引力偏转，并将其应用于最先进的西蒙斯天文台实验。通过我们提取和反演透镜偏转的新方法，我们将提供更清晰的宇宙起源和暗物质分布的视图。宇宙学距离上的一切事物的空间分布，从原子到光，从能量到时空本身，都是在大爆炸后的最初几分之一秒，在一个被称为暴胀的时代建立起来的。通过研究暴胀模型，我们将预测这种明显随机分布的规律性的特定模式，并在宇宙微波背景中寻找这种信号的证据。天体物理学和宇宙学最引人注目的发现之一是，宇宙的大部分物质都是暗的，即在电磁观测中不可见。2017年获得诺贝尔奖的引力波探测为我们提供了一个新的渠道来寻找神秘的暗物质。为此，我们将计算暗物质环境如何在黑洞双星的引力波信号中表现出来。最近对黑洞合并中发出的引力波的直接探测提供了一个前所未有的机会来测试爱因斯坦的广义相对论（GR）的强引力场。要做到这一点，我们需要理论预测偏离GR将如何影响黑洞合并中发射的引力波。我们将发展所需的数学进行超级计算机模拟黑洞合并在一个非常广泛的理论类。它将使用这些来确定这些理论的预测如何不同于强引力状态下的GR。LIGO/Virgo天文台对引力波源的发现需要了解产生它们的物体的起源-双黑洞和中子星。这个项目重新审视了稠密星团中这种相对论双星的动力学演化，以了解它们对LIGO/Virgo天体的贡献。我们将研究由近距离系外行星引起的恒星潮汐波的破裂，以了解它们的轨道收缩的速度。我们还将为科学界提供有效的代码来计算旋转和演化的恒星和巨行星中的潮汐耗散，以便可以理解许多观测到的系外行星系统的起源和轨道演化。行星诞生于围绕着非常年轻的恒星的气体和尘埃盘中。这些磁盘都是动荡和磁化;我们将寻求，通过计算机模拟，这两个过程如何影响行星的形成，以及承载它们的磁盘的演变。我们已与探索频道展开一项联合外展计划，透过推出一项新的多媒体自选视像服务，接触大量国际观众。它将使用我们从引力和宇宙学研究项目中提供的内容，我们还将为公众和学校提供我们的讲座和网站。

This is an ambitious proposal to advance our understanding of the structures in our Universe, exploiting the latest STFC observational programmes in gravitational waves, the cosmic microwave background, galaxy surveys and exoplanets. Our main goals are:1. We will investigate the statistics of matter in the Universe using the latest galaxy survey data (the Dark Energy Survey), as well as maps of the cosmic microwave background, the relic radiation left over from the Big Bang. Determining whether these statistics are Gaussian (obey the normal distribution), we will be able to better understand gravitational collapse and to look for primordial signals from the early Universe, testing theories for the origin of galaxies.2. In this project, we will develop new approaches to the study of CMB lensing, the gravitational deflection of relic light from the Big Bang, and apply them to the state-of-the-art Simons Observatory experiment. With our novel methods for extracting and inverting the lensing deflection, we will provide a clearer view of the beginning of the universe and the distribution of dark matter.3. The spatial distribution of everything on cosmological distances, from atoms to light, from energy to spacetime itself was set up in the first fraction of a second after the big bang, in an era called inflation. By studying models of inflation, we will predict specific patterns of regularity in this apparently haphazard distribution and search for evidence of this signal in the Cosmic Microwave Background.4. One of the most spectacular discoveries from astrophysics and cosmology is that most of the Universe's matter content is dark, i.e. invisible in electromagnetic observations. The 2017 Nobel-Prize winning detection of gravitational waves now provides us with a new channel to search for the enigmatic dark matter. For this purpose we will compute how dark matter environments manifest themselves in the gravitational wave signal from black hole binaries.5. The recent direct detection of gravitational waves emitted in black hole mergers provides an unprecedented opportunity to test Einstein's General Relativity (GR) for strong gravitational fields. To do this we need theoretical predictions for how a deviation from GR would affect the gravitational waves emitted in a black hole merger. We will develop the mathematics needed to perform supercomputer simulations of black hole mergers in a very broad class of theories. It will use these to identify how the predictions of such theories differ from those of GR in the strong gravity regime.6. Discoveries of the gravitational wave sources by LIGO/Virgo observatory necessitate the need to understand the origin of the objects that produce them - binary black holes and neutron stars. This project takes a fresh look at the dynamical evolution of such relativistic binaries in dense stellar clusters to understand their contribution to LIGO/Virgo discoveries.7. We will study the breaking of tidal waves in stars caused by close exoplanets, to understand the rates at which their orbits are shrinking. We will also provide the scientific community with efficient codes to compute tidal dissipation in rotating and evolving stars and giant planets, so that the origins and orbital evolution of many observed exoplanet systems can be understood.8. Planets are born in the disks of gas and dust encircling very young stars. These disks are both turbulent and magnetised; we will seek, via computer simulations, how these two processes influence the formation of planets, and the evolution of the disks that bear them.9. We have embarked on a joint outreach venture with the Discovery Channel to reach a very large international audience through the launch of a new multimedia Video on Demand service. It will use content we supply from our gravitation and cosmology research projects, on which we will also base our talks and websites for the public and schools.