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Research Environment

As part of the Centre for Earth, Planetary, Space and Astronomical Research (CEPSAR) the Department of Physics & Astronomy is part of one of the largest physical science research centres in the UK. It has world leading research programmes across a wide range of interests from atomic, molecular, optical and plasma physics to astronomy.

Astronomy Research Group

We have a programme of observational, theoretical, laboratory based and mission based astronomy research, focussing on three of the nine themes endorsed by the STFC roadmap. 

·         Do we understand the extremes of the Universe?

·         How do galaxies form and evolve?

·         What is the origin and evolution of stars and planets?

The Group is a member of the UK SALT Consortium, which owns a 5% share in the 10m Southern African Large Telescope. We are also a partner in the SuperWASP consortium which operates two robotic sky-patrol camera systems (one in La Palma, one at Sutherland Observatory). Members of our group serve on the science teams for the 2009 ESA GENIE and the 2015 DARWIN missions, and are members of the guaranteed time consortia of the 2006 Japanese Akari infrared survey mission and the 2009 Herschel SPIRE instrument. We also coordinate an EU Network in Astrobiology.  We are also coinvestigators in the future Japan/ESA SPICA mission and the forthcoming UK LOFAR Consortium.

The activities of the Astronomy Research Group fall into five broad areas, with deliberate and substantial overlap:

·         Astrochemistry

·         Extreme Environment Astrophysics 

·         Observational Cosmology

·         Planetary Physics

·         Star Formation  

Physics Applied to Medicine Research Group

This group has an emphasis on interdisciplinary and multi-centre research leading to new developments in medical diagnosis or treatment. The group contains both established and career-early researchers.

The activities of the Physics Applied to Medicine Research Group fall into several subject areas:

-   Autism Spectrum Disorder
-   Functional Imaging
-   Inverse Problems
-   Medical Physics
-   Neuroscience and Education
-   Statistical Physics in Biology and Medicine

Funding in these areas has been provided from grants or equipment donations from research councils, charities, industrial partners and other sources. Collaborations involve groups based in London, Helsinki, Birmingham and Oxford.

Molecular and Optical Physics Research Group

The past three years have been  busy ones for the group with the arrival of new researchers and  Academics, the opening of our new laboratories as part of a major refurbishment programme, and the successful award of EPSRC funding to develop our research on radiation damage,  electron molecule collisions and cold atoms.

Current research topics include:

• Experimental astrophysics and the new science of Astrobiology
• The study of physical and chemical processes in the atmosphere including global warming, ozone depletion and aerosol formation
• Irradiation of biomolecules and cellular material
• Many-body theory
• The study of cold atoms and the creation of ultracold plasmas.
• The theoretical study of electron molecule interactions.

Plasma Science and Engineering Research Group

The group conducts interdisciplinary research with an international focus. Many of our projects are part of larger national and international programmes. Funding is provided by three National research agencies ( EPSRC, NERC and STFC) as well as the European Union, the European Science Foundation, the Royal Society, the Commonwealth office, The British Council and several industrial partners.

We are generally interested in the science and applications of the ionized gases that are often called Technological Plasmas. Such plasmas have applications as diverse as light sources, large display televisions, medical instruments, and a variety of material processing systems.

From both scientific and technological viewpoints, a key feature of the plasmas that we study are that they are far from thermodynamic equilibrium, which means that the atoms and molecules in the background gas have a much lower temperature than any ions and electrons present in the ionized gas.

Our research is concerned with fundamental studies of these plasmas, and development of measurement techniques to monitor and control them

Other plasma related research in the Department can be found at:

·                     Plasma Physics - Collision Physics

·                     Damage of DNA by UV light and low energy electrons

·                     Biolmolecular Clusters

·                     Electron interactions with molecules

Physics Education Research Group

We are a large and diverse group of people with a common interest in finding out more about how physics students learn and how we can teach them more effectively. The Group was formed early in January 2000, and brings together people from a number of different areas of the University. Some of us are physics academics and course managers, others are educational technologists and others are software developers, but we have all been involved with developing and evaluating physics courses and learning materials. Our interests span a wide range of topics, and include:

• teaching and learning 'difficult' physics concepts

• the use of modern educational technologies for teaching and learning physics

• developing physics problem-solving skills

• the use of web-based experiments and simulations, particularly interactive screen experiments, to develop practical work skills

• development of mathematics skills for physics students

• students learning from diagrams and other representations

• context-based and problem-based learning