Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE150101323
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$328,000.00
Summary
Disentangling the Complexity of Old Stellar Populations. Galaxy formation is an outstanding problem in modern astronomy. Star clusters are the basic building blocks in the Universe. The oldest stellar aggregates are the globular clusters whose stars show patterns in composition that are not found elsewhere. This project aims to bring new understanding to globular clusters by studying the composition of their constituent stars in many different environments. Patterns in this composition reveal th ....Disentangling the Complexity of Old Stellar Populations. Galaxy formation is an outstanding problem in modern astronomy. Star clusters are the basic building blocks in the Universe. The oldest stellar aggregates are the globular clusters whose stars show patterns in composition that are not found elsewhere. This project aims to bring new understanding to globular clusters by studying the composition of their constituent stars in many different environments. Patterns in this composition reveal the history of star formation and the formation of the globular clusters themselves. These are in turn involved in the formation of galaxies. The project aims to use these stars to probe the formation of globular clusters and the stellar components of the Galaxy, and hence link these old stars to larger cosmological questions.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE210101738
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$345,000.00
Summary
Discovering the most extreme pulsars with the next generation radio surveys. Finding radio pulsars has always been an extremely rewarding challenge and has led to Nobel Prize winning science. We are now entering a new era of radio astronomy and have new game changers, sensitive, wide-field-of-view imaging telescopes and massive compute resources, to search for extreme pulsars. Such pulsars, including pulsar-blackhole systems and sub-millisecond pulsars, cannot be found with traditional pulsar su ....Discovering the most extreme pulsars with the next generation radio surveys. Finding radio pulsars has always been an extremely rewarding challenge and has led to Nobel Prize winning science. We are now entering a new era of radio astronomy and have new game changers, sensitive, wide-field-of-view imaging telescopes and massive compute resources, to search for extreme pulsars. Such pulsars, including pulsar-blackhole systems and sub-millisecond pulsars, cannot be found with traditional pulsar surveys, but provide us unique laboratories to test gravity theories at ultra-strong gravitational fields and probe the state of matter at supra-nuclear densities. In this project I will leverage the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) to discover the most extreme pulsars in deep all-sky continuum surveys.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE150101145
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$338,895.00
Summary
Before stars go supernova - in 3D. This project aims to understand the full three-dimensional structure of massive stars when they explode. In particular, the project will model the late evolution and burning stages of massive stars before they explode as core collapse supernovae. The violent nature of the thermonuclear burning during the star's last few minutes and seconds may cause significant deviations from spherical symmetry, in particular when considering rotating stars. Such realistic mod ....Before stars go supernova - in 3D. This project aims to understand the full three-dimensional structure of massive stars when they explode. In particular, the project will model the late evolution and burning stages of massive stars before they explode as core collapse supernovae. The violent nature of the thermonuclear burning during the star's last few minutes and seconds may cause significant deviations from spherical symmetry, in particular when considering rotating stars. Such realistic models are an essential ingredient for any realistic supernova model, and for understanding how these supernovae synthesise the entire range of elements (from lightest to the heaviest) in the universe.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE210100953
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$405,000.00
Summary
Directly imaging exoplanets with astrophotonic innovation. Understanding our place in the universe and the possibility of life are profound questions. This project aims to develop innovative astro-photonic technologies to enable imaging of Earth-like planets beyond our solar system, and to perform unprecedented observations. The project expects to generate new knowledge and innovation in exoplanet science and photonics. Expected outcomes include the first glimpse of the most Earth-like planet to ....Directly imaging exoplanets with astrophotonic innovation. Understanding our place in the universe and the possibility of life are profound questions. This project aims to develop innovative astro-photonic technologies to enable imaging of Earth-like planets beyond our solar system, and to perform unprecedented observations. The project expects to generate new knowledge and innovation in exoplanet science and photonics. Expected outcomes include the first glimpse of the most Earth-like planet to date, and the development of ground-breaking technology. Benefits include technological innovation — benefiting fields such as remote-sensing, space-communications, life-science imaging, as well as astronomy — and revealing key insights into our planet’s history and the potential for life in the universe.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE220101325
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$364,092.00
Summary
Minding the gaps in our maps of the stars. This Project seeks to understand the formation of our Galaxy by studying the brightest billion stars. This Project will develop novel methods to account for the unseen hundreds of billions of fainter stars, and for the complexities of space telescopes. Anticipated outcomes include fundamental tests of stellar evolution theory; the discovery of stars flung from our Galaxy by massive black holes; a timeline of our Galaxy’s evolution; and a 3D map of its s ....Minding the gaps in our maps of the stars. This Project seeks to understand the formation of our Galaxy by studying the brightest billion stars. This Project will develop novel methods to account for the unseen hundreds of billions of fainter stars, and for the complexities of space telescopes. Anticipated outcomes include fundamental tests of stellar evolution theory; the discovery of stars flung from our Galaxy by massive black holes; a timeline of our Galaxy’s evolution; and a 3D map of its stars and interstellar dust. This is expected to drive a generational advancement in astrophysics, provide social benefits by engaging the public with discovering the cosmos, and generate economic benefits from a general method for hypothesis testing with biased and incomplete datasets.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE200101840
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$426,696.00
Summary
Fantastic companions of giant planets and where to find them. The gas giants in the Solar System are hypothesized to have played important roles in the formation and habitability of the Earth. This project aims to put the Solar System in a broader context of the exoplanet demography. The expected outcomes of this project include: (1) a uniform sample of small planets discovered with the public Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite data; (2) detection of additional gas giants and in-depth charact ....Fantastic companions of giant planets and where to find them. The gas giants in the Solar System are hypothesized to have played important roles in the formation and habitability of the Earth. This project aims to put the Solar System in a broader context of the exoplanet demography. The expected outcomes of this project include: (1) a uniform sample of small planets discovered with the public Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite data; (2) detection of additional gas giants and in-depth characterisation of the best planetary systems; (3) occurrence rate of planetary systems cohosting both gas giant and small planets. This study will provide significant benefits for theoretically understanding the uniqueness of the Solar System, as well as the formation and evolution of planetary systems in general.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE190100813
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$366,425.00
Summary
Cosmic alchemy: revealing the origin of elements in the universe. This project aims to address the long-standing question in astrophysics of how elements are produced by stars and recycled through galaxies. While it is established that stars are key producers of many of the elements in the universe, the processes that govern their elemental production remains unclear. This project will use an innovative interplay of pioneering observations of dying stars in our galaxy and its neighbours, with st ....Cosmic alchemy: revealing the origin of elements in the universe. This project aims to address the long-standing question in astrophysics of how elements are produced by stars and recycled through galaxies. While it is established that stars are key producers of many of the elements in the universe, the processes that govern their elemental production remains unclear. This project will use an innovative interplay of pioneering observations of dying stars in our galaxy and its neighbours, with state-of-the-art stellar models. The expected outcomes should provide a framework for understanding the chemical make-up of galaxies and the evolution of the Universe. This project will further elevate Australia's global standing in the field of astronomy and maximise returns on Australia's national investment in astronomy infrastructure.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE220100241
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$421,540.00
Summary
Discovering the origin of gravitational waves. This project aims to discover the astrophysical origin of gravitational waves. This project expects to calculate the properties of neutron stars and black holes in binaries, using state-of-the-art simulations performed on the largest Australian supercomputers. Expected outcomes of this project include comparisons between gravitational-wave observations and theory using advanced statistical and machine learning techniques, providing new and unique in ....Discovering the origin of gravitational waves. This project aims to discover the astrophysical origin of gravitational waves. This project expects to calculate the properties of neutron stars and black holes in binaries, using state-of-the-art simulations performed on the largest Australian supercomputers. Expected outcomes of this project include comparisons between gravitational-wave observations and theory using advanced statistical and machine learning techniques, providing new and unique insights into the most massive stars in the Universe. This project should provide significant benefits such as answering key questions about the Universe, cementing Australia's place in the international astronomical community and inspiring and training future generations of Australia's workforce.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE210101639
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$444,075.00
Summary
Getting to Know the Neighbours: Naked-Eye Stars and Their Planets. We now know that nearly all stars host planets, and exoplanet science is now turning to bright individual systems. This Project aims to study the nearest, brightest stars by extending the capabilities of NASA's TESS telescope and Mount Kent Observatory. This is significant as the best chance we have to detect planets around stars bright enough to measure the planetary and stellar properties precisely. The expected outcomes of th ....Getting to Know the Neighbours: Naked-Eye Stars and Their Planets. We now know that nearly all stars host planets, and exoplanet science is now turning to bright individual systems. This Project aims to study the nearest, brightest stars by extending the capabilities of NASA's TESS telescope and Mount Kent Observatory. This is significant as the best chance we have to detect planets around stars bright enough to measure the planetary and stellar properties precisely. The expected outcomes of this project will be the discovery of planets transiting nearby naked-eye stars, and crucial measurements of the masses of these stars and planets. The benefits of this will be a key sample of new, well-understood benchmark systems, and new open-source algorithms for data analysis in astronomy and more broadly.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE180101104
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$322,713.00
Summary
Understanding binary star formation with NASA’s Kepler space telescope. This project aims to find and study binary stars with the goal of deriving the distribution of orbital properties in previously unexplored parameter space. The parameter distributions are crucial observations, against which the outputs of simulations of binary star formation can be tested. The expected outcome is the advancement of our knowledge of the dominant physical processes influencing the formation of binary stars, wi ....Understanding binary star formation with NASA’s Kepler space telescope. This project aims to find and study binary stars with the goal of deriving the distribution of orbital properties in previously unexplored parameter space. The parameter distributions are crucial observations, against which the outputs of simulations of binary star formation can be tested. The expected outcome is the advancement of our knowledge of the dominant physical processes influencing the formation of binary stars, with wide applications across the whole of astronomy, wherever the intricacies of star formation or stellar populations are essential.Read moreRead less