Research Areas - (73) Astronomical Instrumentation

Full path: Astronomy / Astrophysics > Astronomical Instrumentation

Department(s)/lab(s): Physics | IceCube / WIPAC (Lu group) @ UWMadison
Summary:

Astroparticle physicist searching for sources of ultrahigh-energy cosmic particles with IceCube and developing next-generation astroparticle/neutrino detector instrumentation.

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Department(s)/lab(s): Institute of Astronomy | Madhusudhan Exoplanet Group @ Cambridge
Summary:

Madhusudhan pioneered inverse 'atmospheric retrieval' techniques to determine the chemical composition, interior structure and formation history of exoplanets from their spectra, including recent JWST-based investigations of potential biosignature gases on temperate sub-Neptunes (Hycean worlds).

Department(s)/lab(s): Physics | McCammon Group @ UWMadison
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Develops cryogenic microcalorimeter/TES-based X-ray and far-infrared detector arrays used in X-ray astronomy and CMB instrumentation.

Department(s)/lab(s): Physics / A&A | McMahon Group @ UChicago
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Experimental cosmologist developing next-generation CMB detector arrays. Directions: (1) CMB-S4 detector development — leading TES bolometer and MKID array design for 500,000-detector focal plane; (2) South Pole Telescope SPT-3G operations and analysis; (3) cryogenic readout electronics including SQUID multiplexing at millikelvin temperatures; (4) quantum-limited photon detection at mm/submm wavelengths. APS Fellow.

Department(s)/lab(s): Institute of Astronomy | Parry Instrumentation Group @ Cambridge
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Parry designs and builds multi-object and integral-field near-infrared spectrographs for ground-based telescopes (CIRPASS, SMIRFS, MOONS) and is currently developing concepts for unfolding space telescopes and instruments to search for exoplanet biosignatures.

Department(s)/lab(s): Physics | Laboratory Astrophysics Group (Pickering) @ Imperial
Summary:

Pickering performs high-resolution Fourier-transform spectroscopy of atomic and ionic transitions in the laboratory to provide accurate wavelengths, oscillator strengths and transition probabilities that underpin the analysis of stellar and nebular astronomical spectra.

Department(s)/lab(s): Physics / A&A | Privitera Group @ UChicago
Summary:

Works on quantum-limited sensing for astroparticle physics. Directions: (1) Pierre Auger Observatory — UHE cosmic ray composition and spectrum via radio and fluorescence detection; (2) liquid argon dark matter detectors; (3) co-PI DARPA QuSeN (2025) — quantum sensing of neutrinos using phonon-coupled SC qubit sensors with Cleland and Chou. KICP member.

Department(s)/lab(s): Physics (Cavendish Astrophysics) | Cambridge Exoplanet Research Group (Queloz) @ Cambridge
Summary:

Queloz (2019 Nobel Prize, co-discoverer of 51 Peg b) leads exoplanet research at Cambridge, including precision radial velocity spectrograph development and transit photometry. He chairs the CHEOPS space mission science team and is founding director of the Leverhulme Centre for Life in the Universe at Cambridge. Research focuses on characterizing transiting terrestrial planets (especially around M dwarfs including TRAPPIST-1) and atmospheric biosignature detection with JWST-era instruments. Part-time appointment at University of Geneva.

Department(s)/lab(s): School of Physics | Melbourne CMB Cosmology Group (Reichardt) @ UMelb
Summary:

Reichardt leads Melbourne's CMB effort and is a member of SPT-3G, the third-generation South Pole Telescope camera, whose focal plane is populated by ~16,000 transition-edge sensor bolometers read out by SQUID multiplexers. His science targets are CMB lensing, the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect and the small-scale temperature and polarisation power spectra; the enabling technology is cryogenic quantum-limited detection. Positioned against the established body of NV-ensemble quantum sensing work — DEER, nanoscale NMR and T1 relaxometry protocols operating at pT/sqrt(Hz) field sensitivity — this is the astronomical analogue of the same problem — a detector whose noise floor is set by fundamental quantum limits rather than by the source — and TES/SQUID readout is a natural pivot for a physicist trained on pT/sqrt(Hz) magnetometry, since SQUID amplification is the shared hardware. Preferred attribute present: astronomy where the quantum sensor is the enabling technology.