A single set of computer codes will simulate the universe from its first moments after the Big Bang through to the formation of stars, galaxies, and black holes. This research tackles a fundamental gap in cosmology: the physics of the early universe, the nature of gravity, and how galaxies and planets form are all described by separate theories that have never been fully connected. The team will develop numerical models that link inflation (the universe’s initial explosive expansion) to the cosmic microwave background, then trace how gravity shapes galaxy clustering, how dark energy accelerates expansion, and how planets emerge from dust discs around young stars. They will also model gravitational waves from colliding neutron stars and black holes, and analyse data from radio telescopes like HERA and the upcoming Square Kilometre Array. This is fundamental science with no immediate practical application. It aims to answer open questions about how the universe works—whether Einstein’s theory of gravity holds on cosmic scales, what drove inflation, and how planets acquire their observed range of masses and orbits. Past fundamental research in cosmology has unexpectedly enabled GPS timing corrections and medical imaging technologies; deeper understanding of gravity and early-universe physics could similarly underpin future innovations in navigation, precision timing, or data analysis methods.
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We propose to undertake the following research projects. 1) We will develop and extend non-linear numerical codes which model the evolution of the universe from inflation to recombination. Using these codes we will calculate precision observable signatures of the early universe including the bispectrum, magnetic fields and gravitational waves. We will use these observable signatures to confront models of inflation and reheating with forthcoming observational survey data. 2) We explore signatures of GR in galaxy clustering observables; develop optimal statistical methods to extract them from standard contributions; provide simulation data and analysis software to measure and exploit these unique windows on gravity with forthcoming cosmological surveys. 3) We develop the mathematical and numerical tools required to understand gravitational physics in both the mildly non-linear and strongly non-linear regimes. This work will apply and extend the perturbation theories and parameterizations of dark energy and modified gravity that we have already created for these regimes, and allow us to create the tools that are necessary to exploit them using upcoming data. 4) We extend our state of the art simulations and develop complete data analysis pipelines for the cross-correlation of HI intensity mapping surveys with spectroscopic and photometric optical galaxy surveys. This will enable pioneering HI and cosmological measurements, combining currently available and forthcoming data; provide an open source analysis toolkit for HI intensity mapping and optical galaxy data-sets. 5) We develop and apply statistical analysis methods to solve several important challenges in the analysis of 21cm datasets, e.g. due to foreground leakage and covariance-related signal loss. We will develop fast but highly-accurate simulations to characterise the methods, and then apply them to data from HERA, a key SKA precursor. We will disseminate our tools and expertise to prime the UK community for SKA1. 6) We use plasma wake-field acceleration as a unifying concept to study novel particle acceleration concepts and the origin of ultra high energy cosmic rays . We will perform ground-breaking analytical calculations and cutting-edge plasma fluid and kinetic numerical simulations to address the fascinating, unanswered science questions related to particle acceleration in CERN and black holes. 7) GAIA DR2 can measure pairwise velocity differences for wide binary stars to excellent precision ~ 0.05 km/s. We have selected a sample of > 5000 good candidate wide binaries with low contamination. We propose to follow-up a subset of these with spectroscopy and public imaging to produce a `cleaned' sample, and use this to derive useful new constraints on modified-gravity models. 8) We use HPC simulations to model the gas and dust discs that orbit young stars, which are believed to be the sites of planet formation. We study how the planets that form in these discs interact with them, leading to orbital migration, gap formation and accretion of material. Extrasolar planets are observed to have a broad range of masses and orbital architectures, and we examine the role of disc-planet interactions in determining these properties. 9) We develop novel, canonical hydrodynamic numerical schemes, suitablefor inspiral simulations and gravitational-wave detection of neutron binary systems. We obtain formulations of a general class of modified theories of gravity with higher curvature corrections which can be used for inspiral simulations of black hole binaries. 10) We develop a theoretical and computational infrastructure to model gravitational wave signals from extreme mass-ratio inspirals, combining novel numerical methods with time-domain gravitational self-force computation in a radiation gauge to allow calculations for any type of orbit, including highly eccentric or unbound ones, self-consistently for the first time.
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