KAOSS survey

(KMOS+ALMA Observations of Submillimetre Sources)

An investigation into the dynamics of submillimetre galaxies (SMGs) — dusty, star-forming galaxies at cosmic noon (10 billion years ago!) — to provide insight into their evolutionary connection to other galaxy populations.

Observations from the KMOS IFU on the VLT in Chile have enabled us to measure redshifts for a statistically significant sample of ALMA-identified submillimetre galaxies. We will be able to determine clustering strengths, halo masses, and starburst lifetimes.

ISM at Cosmic Noon

An investigation into the shape of the CO spectral line energy distributions

Unresolved mid-J and high-J ALMA CO observations of 12 luminous SMGs show that CO excitation in star-forming galaxies generally correlates with the star-formation rate surface density, but with significant scatter indicative of intrinsic ISM variations. These variations could arise due to heating by cosmic rays or turbulence.

Changing-Look AGN

Searching for X-ray selected, optically varying AGN using XMM-Newton and SDSS

Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) exhibit variations in their X-ray and optical properties in addition to those caused by geometry. Using decades-worth of stacked images from XMM-Newton and spectroscopy from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), we can find new changing-look AGN (CLAGN).

What does an Astrophysicist do?

Here are three steps that summarise how we take Astrophysical data and use it to learn about the Universe!

Data Collection

We collect observational data using ground or space-based telescopes

Data Analysis

We apply fits to spectroscopic observations to measure gas dynamics and infer formation mechanisms

Community-sharing

We distil the information for publications to help build a better picture of how galaxies form and evolve