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UCL Astrophysics

UCL Astrophysics. ~100 people (20 academic staff) Research Areas: Stellar astrophysics, Star formation, Astro-chemistry, Cosmology, Atmospheric Physics, exo-planets, Optics, Mill Hill Observatory. UCL Astrophysics Group Cosmologists. Lucy Clerkin. Sarah Bridle. Donnacha Kirk.

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UCL Astrophysics

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  1. UCL Astrophysics • ~100 people • (20 academic staff) • Research Areas: • Stellar astrophysics, Star formation, Astro-chemistry, • Cosmology, Atmospheric Physics, exo-planets, Optics, Mill Hill Observatory

  2. UCL Astrophysics Group Cosmologists Lucy Clerkin Sarah Bridle Donnacha Kirk Joe Zuntz Ofer Lahav Alex Merson Michael Hirsch Stephen Feeney Manda Banerji Tomek Kacprzak Emma Chapman Sree Balan Hiranya Peiris Barney Rowe Jason McEwen Fotini Economou Lisa Voigt Laura Wolz Boris Leistedt Filipe Abdalla Niall MacCrann Maayane Sougmanac Walter Santos Emily Hall Aurelien Benoit-Levy

  3. A brief history of UCL P&A Cosmology • Start of group: 2004 Ofer Lahav • 1st generation (2004): • Sarah Bridle -> Professor, Manchester • Jochen Weller -> Professor, Munich • 2nd generation (2008): • Hiranya Peiris • Filipe Abdalla • 3rd generation (2012): • Two appointments

  4. Statistical Cosmology from Surveys Ofer Lahav Galaxy surveys Sarah Bridle Cosmic Shear MegaZ-LRG 2MRS Photo-z Galaxy shapes DES HST-MCT DES Euclid Dark energy Filipe Abdalla Radio/Optical Cosmology Hiranya Peiris Early Universe EoR Weak lensing Planck Inflation GR tests Euclid DES SKA Isotropy Non-Gaussianity

  5. Future prospects The Dark Energy Survey • Einstein’s cosmological constant • A new fluid called Dark Energy • General Relativity is wrong Why is the Universe Accelerating?

  6. 5 DES lenses – assembly at UCL C3 Polishing & coating coordinated by UCL (with £1.76M STFC funding, PI: Lahav)

  7. DES First Light12 Sep 2012 NGC1365

  8. Photometric Redshifts Collister & Lahav 2004 http://www.star.ucl.ac.uk/~lahav/annz.html

  9. Neutrino Mass CDM+ massive neutrinos CDM only • Constraints from MegaZ-LRG 700,000 galaxies • 0.05 eV < Total neutrino mass < 0.28 eV (95% CL) • Forecast constraints from DES Thomas, Abdalla & Lahav, PRL (2010) Lahav, Kiakotou, Abdalla & Blake, MNRAS (2010) Swanson, Percival & Lahav, MNRAS (2010) Kiakotou, Elgaroy & Lahav, PRD (2008) Advanced ERC TESTDE team

  10. DESpec: Spectroscopic follow up of DES • 4000–fibre $40M (?) instrument • 7 million galaxy spectra, target list from DES, • DETF Stage IV experiment • DES+DESpec can distinguish DE from ModGrav Kirk, Lahav, Bridle, Abdalla, Jouvel et al. (in preparation) Jouvel, Abdalla, Blahav, Bridle et al.(in preparation) DESpec white paper Abdalla et al. astro-ph:1209.2451

  11. ESA Euclid • During the design phase: • Photo-z needs (Abdalla et al. 08) • Coulour dependence of the psf (Cypriano et al. 10 Voigt et al. 11) • During the implementation phase • Science working groups. • Science ready data (OU-LE3) • Photo-z (OU-PHZ) • Shear measurement (OU-SHE)

  12. 25 clusters Testing conflict with LCDM Discovering z=10 galaxy candidates PI: Postman; UCL coI: Lahav + Host & Jouvel

  13. Weak Gravitational Lensing & Intrinsic alignments

  14. Image analysis of galaxy shapes Figure from the GREAT08 Handbook. Bridle et al 2009 Barney Rowe now co-leading next GREAT-like challenge

  15. LOFAR - EoR • EoR Data being taken now! • Working on Foreground removal Yatawata et al. 12 Recovered signal (Chapman et al. 12a,b) Add foregrounds 100-1000 times larger Cosmic signal

  16. Square Kilometre Array: SKA • Forecasts, simulations • New imaging techniques

  17. Status of Surveys we are involved in • HST-CLASH: Observations started in Nov 2010 • Planck: See Hiranya’s talk... • LOFAR:Telescope is ready, KSP taking data now. • DES: First light Sep. Survey starts Dec. • Euclid: Selected by ESA in Oct 2011. Launch 2019 • DESpec, BigBOSS: Study funding from STFC • SKA: Site selection done. Studies for implementation phase.

  18. Synergies between P&A and other London institutes • Imperial -> Euclid, Planck, Astro-statistics, Theory, EoR/SKA • Kings -> Early universe, HEP • QM-> Early Universe, VISTA • MSSL (UCL) -> Euclid, Weak lensing, LOFAR

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