Durham astronomers will use the world’s most powerful ground- and space-based telescopes to map how galaxies form, how black holes grow, and what the Universe is made of. This matters because the basic physics of galaxy formation and black-hole feedback remains poorly understood. The team will tackle open questions at the core of modern astrophysics: how supermassive black holes drive outflows that shape their host galaxies, how stars and galaxies evolve over cosmic time, and what dark energy and dark matter are doing to the large-scale structure of the Universe. The research is fundamental science with no immediate practical application. It will produce new catalogues of galaxies and quasars, precise measurements of stellar populations, and constraints on cosmological models. Past fundamental work in extragalactic astronomy has led to unexpected breakthroughs—for example, the discovery of dark energy from supernova surveys—and deeper understanding of the cosmos often feeds into technologies such as precision optics, detector arrays, and data-processing algorithms used in medical imaging and satellite navigation.
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Over recent years observational astronomers at Durham have been at the forefront of many major advances in the study of galaxies and cosmology. We have a publication and citation record which we believe speaks for itself (see proposal introduction). Durham astronomers currently lead major international projects that exploit many of the the world's foremost ground and space observatories. We will capitalize on our proven track record in AGN studies, precision spectrophotometric analysis of stellar populations in nearby galaxies, multiwavelength studies of galaxy populations at high redshift and panoramic QSO and galaxy surveys, to answer open questions which lie at the core of modern astrophysics. In this proposal we present the case for support of a coherent and comprehensive programme that builds on our strengths and seizes new opportunities. Our programme addresses key questions in the STFC Roadmap, such as ``What are the laws of physics in extreme conditions?'', ``How do galaxies, stars and planets form and evolve?'' and ``What is the Universe made of and how does it evolve?''. This proposal is constructed around the four core themes of our research: Theme A: AGN: outflows from black holes their growth and environment Theme B: Galaxy evolution and archaeology and closely related to this; Theme C: feedback and the formation of galaxies Theme D: Survey cosmology, using galaxies and clusters as probes of large scale structure and evolution There is a well established deep rooted synergy between our work and the research of the ICC group, and the instrumentation group (CfAI).
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