Research Areas - (110) Astronomy / Astrophysics

Full path: Astronomy / Astrophysics

Department(s)/lab(s): School of Physics / Sydney Institute for Astronomy | Sydney Astrophotonic Instrumentation Laboratory (SAIL) @ USyd
Summary:

Bryant invented the hexabundle — a lightly-fused bundle of optical fibres that behaves as an imaging integral-field unit while retaining high throughput — and leads the Hector galaxy survey instrument built around them. Her work is squarely instrumentation: fibre bundle design and fabrication, throughput and cross-talk characterisation, and the deployment of hundreds of these units on a telescope to obtain spatially resolved spectroscopy of thousands of galaxies. 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 — the connection is device-level rather than conceptual, but the discipline — squeezing every photon out of a fibre-coupled optical train — is the same one that governs collection-efficiency-limited pT/sqrt(Hz) NV ensemble readout. Borderline inclusion under the astronomy criterion; kept because the sensor front end is the object of study.

Department(s)/lab(s): Physics | MIT Binary Star Astrophysics Group @ MIT
Summary:

NON-PREFERRED (astronomy pivot, kept for review). Burdge discovers and characterizes compact binary systems (white dwarfs, neutron stars, black holes) using time-domain, multi-messenger methods, and develops ultrafast sub-electron-noise optical camera instrumentation (Lightspeed) for ground-based telescopes; this is a good fit for the 'sufficiently complicated sensor enabling temporal resolution' astro-pivot category rather than core quantum sensing.

Department(s)/lab(s): Physics (Cavendish Astrophysics) | COAST / MROI Optical Interferometry Group (Buscher) @ Cambridge
Summary:

Buscher leads optical/infrared astronomical interferometry research at the Cavendish, co-leading COAST and serving as System Architect for the Magdalena Ridge Observatory Interferometer (MROI) in New Mexico. Current work focuses on MROI science-combiner instrumentation, fringe tracking, and light source/alignment systems for the beam train. He also holds an EPSRC grant (with Haniff and Young) on machining metre-sized gratings with nanometre precision for ELT high-resolution spectrographs. He is President of the Scientific Council of the European Interferometry Initiative.

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

Experimental cosmologist building and operating CMB telescopes. Directions: (1) South Pole Telescope — PI of SPT series; SPT-3G currently mapping CMB temperature and polarization at arcminute resolution; (2) thermal and kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect mapping for galaxy cluster cosmology; (3) CMB gravitational lensing for large-scale structure; (4) CMB-S4 design and planning. Argonne joint appointment. APS and AAAS Fellow.

Department(s)/lab(s): Physics | Space and Atmospheric Physics Group @ Imperial
Summary:

Carr designs, builds and calibrates fluxgate magnetometers for planetary and heliophysics space missions (including ESA's JUICE and BepiColombo), covering everything from sensor electronics to in-flight calibration of magnetic-field instrumentation.

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

Develops superconducting detector and readout systems for CMB observations. Directions: (1) SQUID-multiplexed readout architecture for large TES bolometer arrays (SPT-3G, CMB-S4); (2) transition-edge sensor bolometer fabrication and characterization; (3) MKID detector development; (4) CMB-S4 instrument design. Argonne joint appointment. Deep expertise in quantum-limited cryogenic detector readout.

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

Clements studies dusty, infrared-luminous galaxies and gravitationally lensed submillimetre sources using Herschel, ALMA and other facilities to probe galaxy formation and evolution, and works on transient/anomaly detection in large astronomical surveys.

Department(s)/lab(s): Physics & Astronomy | Munnerlyn Astronomical Instrumentation Laboratory @ TAMU
Summary:

DePoy heads the Munnerlyn Astronomical Instrumentation Lab, building high-throughput spectrographs and precision photometric-calibration systems (DECam/DECal for the Dark Energy Survey, VIRUS for HETDEX, GMACS for the Giant Magellan Telescope). A strong astronomy pivot where detector/spectrograph sensitivity is the enabling technology.

Department(s)/lab(s): Astronomy | Event Horizon Telescope Group (Doeleman) @ Harvard
Summary:

Doeleman founded and directs the Event Horizon Telescope, assembling a global mm-wavelength VLBI network to image the immediate environments of supermassive black holes at horizon-scale resolution — an astronomy pivot whose entire scientific case rests on pushing angular resolution to its fundamental (diffraction/baseline) limit via a globally distributed, highly complex sensor array.

Techniques:
Department(s)/lab(s): Astronomy | Dong Group @ UIUC
Summary:

Observational exoplanet astronomer studying planetary system architectures and demographics using transit and radial-velocity surveys.