Astronomers are using supercomputers and the world’s most powerful telescopes to reconstruct the first billion years after the Big Bang. The team at the University of Sussex is tackling four fundamental questions: what drove the universe’s initial expansion, how the first stars and black holes ignited, what dark matter and dark energy actually do, and how galaxies evolve over cosmic time. They combine theoretical models with data from observatories including the James Webb Space Telescope, Euclid, and the Vera Rubin Observatory. This is fundamental science with no immediate practical application. But similar curiosity-driven work in cosmology has previously given us technologies like GPS corrections (which rely on general relativity) and the statistical methods now used in medical imaging. A clearer picture of how structure forms could eventually sharpen our understanding of large-scale physics that underpins satellite navigation, timekeeping, and data analysis tools used across science and industry.
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This proposal seeks support to continue an extensive programme of research into extragalactic astrophysics and cosmology, by addressing some of the most pressing astrophysical questions of our time, such as: - What are the laws of physics operating in the early Universe? - How did the initial structure in the universe form? - How is the universe evolving and what roles do dark matter and dark energy play? - When and how were the first stars, black holes and galaxies born? - How do stars and galaxies evolve? To achieve these aims we will combine cutting-edge observations, numerical simulations, and statistical techniques. This proposal consists of 10 varied but interconnected projects, each involving one or more faculty members and researchers, that can be collected into three broad themes: Early and late universe cosmology; Galaxy simulation and modelling; Galaxy and cluster observations and analysis: Early and late universe cosmology: a series of projects will address theoretical predictions and observational constraints on inflation, dark energy and large scale structure. Our work encompasses both the development of theoretical frameworks and the analysis of cutting edge observational data-sets. Galaxy simulation and modelling: we will use Peta-scale computing facilities to carry out detailed studies of the formation and evolution of the first structures, and make statistical predictions that can be used in the exploitation of current and upcoming observational facilities such as James Webb Space Telescope, Euclid, LOFAR, and the Square Kilometre Array. Galaxy and cluster observations: we will make use of multi-wavelength observations to answer a variety of questions concerning the formation and evolution of galaxies. We will continue to exploit our involvement in the Dark Energy Survey, Euclid, the James Webb Space Telescope, the 4m Multi-Object Spectroscopic Telescope (4MOST) on VISTA, LOFAR, the Vera Rubin Observatory, and the XMM-Newton Cluster Survey. We also request support for an outreach project attached to Project 10.
Anita Romer (Co-Investigator)Antony Lewis (Co-Investigator)Christian Byrnes (Co-Investigator)Darren Baskill (Co-Investigator)David Seery (Co-Investigator)Ilian Iliev (Co-Investigator)Jonathan Loveday (Co-Investigator)Peter Thomas (Co-Investigator)Robert Edward Smith (Co-Investigator)Sebastian Oliver (Co-Investigator)Stephen Wilkins (Principal Investigator)
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