Two-thirds of the universe is made of a mysterious force called dark energy that pushes galaxies apart ever faster, and another quarter is invisible dark matter—yet no one knows what either actually is. Durham’s astronomy programme combines theory, observation, and new instrument-building to tackle these fundamental unknowns. The researchers will use ground-based telescopes and space satellites to trace how galaxies, black holes, and large-scale cosmic structures formed and evolved over billions of years. They will test computer models of the early universe against real data, and search for astrophysical clues to the identity of dark matter and the nature of dark energy. This is curiosity-driven fundamental science with no immediate practical application. But past work in cosmology—such as the discovery of the cosmic microwave background or the development of CCD sensors for telescopes—led directly to technologies now used in medical imaging, satellite navigation, and Wi-Fi. A deeper understanding of dark matter and dark energy could similarly reshape physics and, eventually, everyday technology.
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Astronomy can capture the public imagination to a greater extent than almost any other branch of science. It is accessible to anyone who gazes up into the night sky to look at the Moon, the planets, stars, and nearby galaxies. Our understanding of the universe has developed rapidly over the past several 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. Our programme combines cutting-edge theoretical and observational research with innovative instrumentation development to understand the universe in which we inhabit. We blend theoretical research on the earliest phases of the Universe with theoretical and observational projects to determine the formation and evolution of black holes, galaxies, and the larger-scale structures in which they reside. We confront the predictions from our models with our latest observational results, while actively exploiting innovative instrumentation developments pursued in Durham. We will explore astrophysical clues to the identity of the dark matter and the nature of the dark energy, focus on the evolution of galaxies back to the earliest times in the Universe and the influence on which the larger-scale environment has had on their properties. We will investigate the formation and evolution of black holes and their role in determining the structure and properties of galaxies and their larger scale structures, using the latest instruments on ground-based observatories and Earth-orbiting satellites.
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