Astrophysics

Centre for Doctoral Training in Next Generation Computational Modelling

Hans Fangohr, Ian Hawke, Peter Horak (Investigators), Susanne Ufermann Fangohr, Thorsten Wittemeier, Kieran Selvon, Alvaro Perez-Diaz, David Lusher, Ashley Setter, Emanuele Zappia, Hossam Ragheb, Ryan Pepper, Stephen Gow, Jan Kamenik, Paul Chambers, Robert Entwistle, Rory Brown, Joshua Greenhalgh, James Harrison, Jonathon Waters, Ioannis Begleris, Craig Rafter

The £10million Centre for Doctoral Training was launched in November 2013 and is jointly funded by EPSRC, the University of Southampton, and its partners.

The NGCM brings together world-class simulation modelling research activities from across the University of Southampton and hosts a 4-year doctoral training programme that is the first of its kind in the UK.

Cosmological evolution of supermassive black holes in the centres of galaxies

Anna Kapinska (Investigator)

Radio galaxies and quasars are among the largest and most powerful single objects known and are believed to have had a significant impact on the evolving Universe and its large-scale structure. Their jets inject a significant amount of energy into the surrounding medium, hence they can provide useful information in the study of the density and evolution of the intergalactic and intracluster medium. The jet activity is also believed to regulate the growth of massive galaxies via the AGN feedback. In this project, through the use of numerical simulations, I explore the intrinsic and extrinsic physical properties of the population of Fanaroff-Riley II (FR II) objects, i.e. their kinetic luminosities, lifetimes, and central densities of their environments. This allows one to investigate evolution of these radio sources across cosmic time, and to discuss the significance of the impact of these sources on the evolving Universe.

Gravitational waves from neutron stars

Ian Hawke (Investigator)

Gravitational waves, once detected, will give information about the extremes of space and time. Compact objects such as neutron stars are perfect locations for generating such waves.

Lattice Holographic Cosmology

Andreas Juttner (Investigator), Matthew Mostert

This project will aim to develop new theoretical field methods and massively parallel computational algorithms to be utilised on both new computational architectures (e.g. Intel Xeon Phi) and existing high performance computers (HPCs).

The ultimate goal is to make predictions for the power spectrum and non-gaussianties of the CMB which would then be falsifiable by comparison to the Planck and WMAP data.

Lattice Holographic Cosmology

This project will aim to develop new theoretical field methods and massively parallel computational algorithms to be utilised on both new computational architectures (e.g. Intel Xeon Phi) and existing high performance computers (HPCs).

Lattice Holographic Cosmology

This project will aim to develop new theoretical field methods and massively parallel computational algorithms to be utilised on both new computational architectures (e.g. Intel Xeon Phi) and existing high performance computers (HPCs).

Modelling of neutron star interactions in X-ray binary systems

Malcolm Coe (Investigator), Rory Brown

Investigating the X-ray production mechanisms of binaries containing neutron stars and the decretion disks of Be stars using Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH).

Multiscale modelling of neutron star oceans

Ian Hawke (Investigator), Alice Harpole

Type I X-ray bursts are explosions which occur on the surface of some
neutron stars. It is believed that the burning begins in a localised spot in the ocean of the
star before spreading across the entire surface. By gaining a better understanding of X-ray
bursts, it is hoped that tighter limits can be determined for other neutron star properties
such as the radius and magnetic field strength.

Multiscale Relativistic Simulations

Ian Hawke (Investigator), Alex Wright

There has been recent success in experiments, such as LIGO, in detecting the mergers of celestial objects via the gravitational waves they emit. By implementing numerical methods, we aim to speed up the numerical simulations of these events but up to two orders of magnitudes, and study binary inspirals in greater detail and over much larger timespans.

Multiscale Relativistic Simulations

There has been recent success in experiments, such as LIGO, in detecting the mergers of celestial objects via the gravitational waves they emit. I will use numerical methods to simulate the inspiral of a black hole/neutron star binary system.

Numerical Elastic Neutron Stars

Ian Hawke, Ian Jones (Investigators), Andrew Penner

We study the astrophysical effects of the crust on a neutron star using an elasto-hydrodynamic model.

Pushing the Envelope of Planetary Formation and Evolution Simulations

Peter Bartram

A full understanding of the formation and the early evolution of the Solar System and extrasolar planetary systems ranks among natural science's grand challenges, and at present, even the dominant processes responsible for generating the observed planetary architecture remain elusive.

Relativistic multifluids

Ian Hawke (Investigator)

Multiphase flow is a central model in fluid dynamics. Its extension to relativity is crucial for tackling many astrophysics problems, and has fascinating mathematical features.

Self-Force and Black Hole Inspirals

Sam Dolan (Investigator)

We use IRIDIS to compute the self-force acting on a solar-mass black hole orbiting a supermassive black hole.

Supernova Rates in the Local Universe

Mark Sullivan (Investigator), Christopher Frohmaier

This project will calculate the frequency of exploding stars -- or supernovae -- in the nearby universe. We simulate a 'toy universe' by exploding billions of stars in a computer, and then artificially 'observing' these explosions by replicating a real astronomical sky survey, the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF). The results of this simulation allows us to discover the rate at which supernovae occur in the local universe each year.