2010 marked the 35th anniversary of the renaissance of observational
astronomy and cosmology in the
Department of Physics at
Durham University. The Extragalactic Astronomy and Cosmology Group has grown
substantially over this period and we are now one of the largest astronomy
groups in the UK and Europe, hosting world-class activities in observational
and theoretical extragalactic astronomy and cosmology, encompassing the
formation and evolution of galaxies, clusters and large scale structure.
Together these provide
a rich research environment where productivity is significantly enhanced
by the ease of cross-disciplinary collaboration.
Durham
ranked Number One in Europe and fourth in the world for our research
into
Space Science (which covers research into astronomy and astrophysics)
over the decade 1998-2008, according to a recent league table by Thomson
Reuters ESI and published in the Times.
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Postgraduate Research Opportunities
We are seeking graduate students to undertake research within our PhD and
MSc programmes from October 2013. We have 1 ERC, 1 Charm, and 8 STFC fully-funded studentships for
3.5-4 year PhD degrees. In addition we will also consider students
with self-funding or with funding from different sources;
Students will undertake full-time (or part
time) cutting edge astronomical research and instrumentation. Applicants are
required to have, or expected to gain, a 1st in a 3-year undergraduate
degree, or at least a 2:1 in a 4-year undergraduate degree, or at least a pass
in an MSc postgraduate degree,
in physics, astrophysics or mathematics. More details on the available
research programmes, application procedure, and eligibilty can be obtained
from here.
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Our observational research programmes makes extensive use of
the world's forefront observational facilities to test advanced
theoretical models of galaxy and structure formation developed in
Durham. We utilise the
largest ground-based optical and near-infrared telescopes including
those in Hawaii, Australia, Chile and the Canary Islands, and we have
been particularly successful at obtaining time on the Hubble Space
Telescope. The multi-wavelength aspects of our programme focus on
sub-millimeter and radio observations from ground-based facilities in
Hawaii, Spain, Australia and the Americas and X-ray observations from
space-based facilities such as the Chandra and Newton
X-ray satellites (and NuSTAR from 2012).
Follow the Research Topics link to find out more about our research.
Our theoretical research programme is centred around the Institute for
Computational Cosmology (ICC). There you will find details of our
studies into galaxy formation, large-scale structure and the nature of the
cosmic dark matter. A key component of our research explores mass accretion
onto black holes and is outlined both here (see Research Topics link on the
left hand panel) and on our high-energy astrophysics web pages. We
also closely interact with staff in the Astronomical Instrumentation
group to aid the development and commissioning of instrumentation
purpose-built for studies relevant to this area.
The Extragalactic & Cosmology Group is just one part of the Astronomy & Astrophysics research at Durham.
