My lab program is focussed on developing fibre-based devices for use in astronomical instrumentation.
A comprehensive account of the current international status of the field of astrophotonics is give in "Recent Advances in Astrophotonics", 2017, Eds: Bryant, Thomson, Withford; https://www.osapublishing.org/oe/virtual_issue.cfm?vid=365
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I am developing new types of hexabundles, which are fibre-based
imaging bundles for use in astronomy. Hexabundles allow spatially resolved
spectroscopy of many galaxies at a time. They have been implemented into the new SAMI ( https://sami-survey.org/)
instrument on the AAO, and are being used to do a survey of several thousand
galaxies. New-generation devices are currently being developed for Hector.
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Characterisation and minimisation of focal ratio degradation (FRD) in optical fibre systems for astronomy.
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Non-circular-fibre-core devices.
I have an active student program in my labs from undergraduate to PhD. If you are a student with engineering or technical skills and an interest in photonics and astronomy then contact me to discuss projects that may interest you.
SPIE 2012 SAMI and square-core fibre papers are HERE
SPIE 2010 papers from me and the astrophotonics team, plus my MNRAS hexabundle paper are HERE
Gas accretion in galaxies
My research program on gas accretion in galaxies investigates all aspects of how galaxies accrete gas, expel gas and use gas for star formation. The accretion of gas is closely related to how galaxies form their kinematic morphology and shape.
This program is primarily based on data from the SAMI Galaxy Survey. The main SAMI Target Selection paper is at Bryant et al. 2015, MNRAS, 447, 2857
Selected papers from my students in this program:
- Bloom et al., in press MNRAS
- Bloom et al. 2017, MNRAS, 472, 1809
- Leslie et al. 2017, MNRAS, 471, 2438
- Bloom et al., 2017, MNRAS, 465, 123
- Richards et al. 2016, MNRAS, 458, 1300
- Richards et al. 2016, MNRAS, 455, 2826
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My paper on gas accretion in different morphological galaxy types (submitted to MNRAS Oct 2017) HERE
High redshift galaxies
Distant galaxies can be found using a combination of their radio spectral index and infrared brightness (the K-z relation). My high redshift galaxies program aimed to identify galaxies above redshift of 3 to understand how denser environments can speed up the formation of such galaxies.
Notice the faintest of the smudges in my border image at the bottom of this page.....they are actually galaxies from when the Universe was less than a quarter of it's current age. The image is a 3-colour composite from my deep infrared (J, H and K-band) imaging of distant galaxies using the Magellan Telescope in Chile.
Links to two of my high-redshift galaxies papers are Paper 2 and Paper 3
Centaurus A links from a long time ago
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