The Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics is using the Universe's most extreme objects—pulsars, gravitational lenses, and the cosmic microwave background—to test the fundamental laws of physics and trace the evolution of galaxies. This research addresses a gap in knowledge about what makes up more than 95% of the cosmos: dark matter and dark energy. These invisible components shape the large-scale structure of the Universe, yet their nature remains unknown. The team also studies how massive stars form and die, and how magnetic fields thread through space between galaxies. If successful, this work will produce the most precise tests of gravity outside the Solar System, using pulsars as cosmic clocks. It will also refine maps of neutral hydrogen across cosmic time, which underpin our understanding of galaxy formation. This is fundamental science with no immediate practical application. However, similar curiosity-driven research at Jodrell Bank—originally built to study cosmic rays—later enabled the development of radio interferometry techniques now used in satellite communications and medical imaging. A deeper understanding of gravity and dark matter could, in the long term, inform future navigation systems or tests of fundamental physics that underpin GPS technology.
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This grant supports the research of the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester. Our research is a divided into 3 groups. There are too many specific proposals to describe in detail, do below we have given a brief layman's explanation of the work being carried out by the three groups. Cosmology: This is the study of the Universe as a whole. The main aim is to understand the processes by which the large scale feature of the Universe formed and to constrain the various different kinds of matter that existed within it. These include dark matter and dark energy which are thought to constitute more than 95% of the total. We do this by comparison to observations of weak and strong gravitational lensing which is the distortion of light predicted to be caused by massive objects in Einstein' Theory of General Relativity, the cosmic microwave background which is the faint emission of radiation created at the time when protons and electrons come together to form hydrogen and the emission given off by neutral hydrogen atoms in galaxies. The research we propose here involves both theory and observation as well as the development of the technology necessary to make the observations possible. Sun, Stars and Galaxies: The researchers in this group study a wide range of astrophysical processes that are reasonable for the formation and evolution of the objects in the name of the group. Specific key areas that the group is interested in are the formation of stars much larger than the Sun and the subsequent evolution, the properties of the so-called interstellar medium (ISM) which comprises molecules not bound to stars and the magnetic fields that permeate space. Pulsars and Time Domain Astrophysics: The focus of this group is astrophysical signatures that are changing with time- things which come on and off, often with some kind of regularity. These include Pulsars which are a non-standard star type, known as a neutron star, which is a dead star supported by the quantum pressure of neutrons. The radio emission from these objects pulses on an off with extraordinary regularity allowing them to acts cosmic clocks. The constantly measuring these clocks as the neutron stars spin and move through space, often impacted on by a companion star, allows the most precise constraints on the nature of gravity outside the solar system. Other phenomena studied by this group include Nova explosions, other variable stars, and variability induced by the lensing effects of one star passing in front of another, called microlensing.
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