Astronomy at Durham 2023-2026

天文学吸引了公众的想象力，几乎没有其他科学分支能与之匹敌--这在很大程度上是因为它涉及的问题的根本性质：宇宙的起源和我们在其中的位置。在过去的几十年里，我们对宇宙的理解发展迅速。根据标准的宇宙学模型，我们生活在一个宇宙中，其中至少三分之二的质量能量以暗能量的形式存在，这导致宇宙以不断增加的速度膨胀。大约四分之一的质量能量以暗物质的形式存在，这很可能是一种尚未在地球上探测到的新的弱相互作用基本粒子(因此粒子物理学家非常感兴趣)。剩下的5%的质量能量是以普通或重子的形式存在的，其中只有大约十分之一存在于恒星和行星(如地球)中，其余的主要以气体的形式存在于星系之间。暗物质和重子物质形成的结构被认为是大爆炸最早时刻在宇宙密度场中留下的量子涨落的种子。它们在接近均匀的原始等离子体中产生了微弱的声波，在大爆炸遗留下来的热量上留下了明显的印记，大爆炸在宇宙只有40万年的时候发出(现在可以看到宇宙微波背景)。这些微小的涟漪成长为我们今天在宇宙中看到的丰富的结构：星系、星系、星系团和更大规模的结构。我们的计划结合了尖端的理论和观测项目，以确定宇宙中结构的形成和演化，并利用我们在达勒姆进行的仪器开发，将我们模型的预测与我们最新的观测结果相结合。我们将探索暗物质身份的天体物理学线索，重点关注星系追溯到宇宙中最早的时代的演化，以及它们的环境对其性质的影响。我们将利用地面观测站和地球轨道卫星上的最新仪器，研究恒星和黑洞的形成和演化，以及它们在确定星系和更大尺度结构的结构和性质中的作用。

Astronomy attracts the imagination of the public to an extent that few other branches of science can match - this is due, in large part, to the fundamental nature of the questions it addresses: the origin of the Universe and our place within it.Our understanding of the universe has developed rapidly over the last few decades. On the basis of the standard cosmological model we live in a universe where at least two thirds of the mass energy is in the form of dark energy which causes the Universe to expand at an ever increasing rate. About a quarter of the mass energy is in the form of dark matter, most probably a new weakly interacting elementary particle yet to be detected on Earth (and hence of great interest to particle physicists). The remaining five percent of the mass energy is in the form of ordinary, or baryonic, matter of which only about a tenth is in stars and planets such as the Earth, and the rest resides mostly as gas in between galaxies. The structures formed by dark and baryonic matter are thought to have been seeded by quantum fluctuations imprinted in the density field of the Universe at the earliest instants of the Big Bang. These produced weak sound waves in the near-uniform primordial plasma that left observable imprints on the heat left over from the Big Bang, emitted when the Universe was only 400,000 years old (now visible as the Cosmic Microwave Background). These tiny ripples grew into the full richness of structures we see around us in the Universe today: galaxies, groups, clusters and larger-scale structures.Our programme combines cutting-edge theoretical and observational projects to determine the formation and evolution of structure in the Universe and to confront the predictions of our models with our latest observational results, while exploiting instrumentation developments pursued in Durham. We will explore astrophysical clues to the identity of the dark matter, focus on the evolution of galaxies back to the earliest times in the Universe and the influence which their environment has had on their properties. We will investigate the formation and evolution of stars and black holes and their role in determining the structure and properties of galaxies and larger-scale structures, using the latest instruments on ground-based observatories and Earth-orbiting satellites.