Hello, welcome to my home page, which summarises briefly my research and non-research activities...
Research:
While most X-ray astronomers consider me to be a radio astronomer, radio astronomers consider me to be something else. In any case, I take a 'whatever tool is necessary' approach to tackling some problems in high-energy astrophysics, even occasionally talking to theorists.
Over the period July 09 - July 10 I am a Leverhulme Research Fellow, unemcumbered by admin and teaching. This is just as well, since LOFAR data are about to start pouring in...
Some of the astrophysical problems which attract my attention are..:
Jets
Jets somehow magically remove matter, energy and
(probably) angular momentum from the gravitational potential wells of
accreting objects. This phenomena takes this matter, accelerates it to
high (often relativistic) velocities and eventually deposits it back
into the ambient medium. I am interested in more all less all aspects
of the very poorly-understood phenomenon.
Black hole physics
Black holes are - to me at least - the most
fascinating objects in the universe: exotic predictions of general
relativity which appear to be real. These objects seed our universe on
all scales, from a few solar masses to billions. Observations of
relatively low mass black holes in X-ray binary systems indicate that
nearly all the time, nearly all black holes are producing
jets. Furthermore, black hole accretion and jet formation should be
essentially scale-invariant, which means that by studying
rapidly-varying low mass black holes in X-ray binaries, we can learn
about the evolution of supermassive black holes on cosmological
timescales.
Low-frequency radio astronomy (LOFAR)
I am also heavily involved in the LOFAR project, in particular the Transients Key
Project, of which I am PI. We aim to have a radio all-sky monitor
by 2009 ! I am also Project Leader for LOFAR:UK, a multi-institution
project to build LOFAR stations in the UK.
The Team
I work very closely (=rely on) students and postdocs in Southampton and
Amsterdam (where I retain an affiliation):
Jess Broderick (Southampton, postdoc - radio astronomy)
Gabriele Ponti (Southampton, postdoc - X-ray astronomy)
Martin Bell (Southampton, PhD student - radio transients)
Dan Calvelo (Southampton, PhD student - high energy astrophysics in radio)
Omar Jamil (Southampton, PhD student - internal shock models for jets)
Paolo Soleri (Amsterdam, PhD student - accretion in X-ray binaries)
Former members of the team include:
Elena Gallo (about to join the faculty at Michigan)
Simone Migliari (postdoc in Madrid)
Sebastian Jester (postdoc in Heidelberg)
Valeriu Tudose (postdoc at ASTRON)
Dave Russell (postdoc in Amsterdam)
Robert Dunn (postdoc, Garching)
Clement Cabanac (postdoc, Toulouse)
Elmar Koerding (faculty, Paris)
Non-research:
I am currently a member of the following advisory panels:
STFC Far-Universe Advisory Panel (FUAP)
STFC Ground-Based Facilities Review
STFC SKADS steering committee
Dutch NWO VIDI selection committee
I am also the UK representative on the LOFAR International Working Group.