New Pulsar Instrumentation for Gravitation Wave Detection and Understanding the Emission Mechanism. Millisecond pulsar timing currently provides the most sensitive method of detecting long-period gravitational waves which permeate the Universe. Parkes leads the world in the discovery and timing of millisecond pulsars. This has motivated the development of three new advanced instruments including a cyrogenic dual-band receiver, a very wide-band correlator and a baseband recorder with an in-built ....New Pulsar Instrumentation for Gravitation Wave Detection and Understanding the Emission Mechanism. Millisecond pulsar timing currently provides the most sensitive method of detecting long-period gravitational waves which permeate the Universe. Parkes leads the world in the discovery and timing of millisecond pulsars. This has motivated the development of three new advanced instruments including a cyrogenic dual-band receiver, a very wide-band correlator and a baseband recorder with an in-built supercomputer. We aim to exploit these new technologies to systematically study the pulsar population. We will establish a timing array which can detect gravitational waves, enable GLAST to identify over 100 gamma-ray pulsars and study the pulsar emission mechanism at sub-microsecond time resolution.
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Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE0561104
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$402,128.00
Summary
A 10 Gbit/s Fibre Optic link to the Mt Pleasant and Mt Canopus Observatories. A 10 gigabit per second fibre optic link to the Mt Pleasant and Mt Canopus observatories will enable a wide range of new and exciting research opportunities. Very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) allows imaging of distant astronomical objects with much higher resolution than any other technique. The proposed fibre optic link will revolutionise Australia's VLBI capability, giving it the world's most sensitive array, ....A 10 Gbit/s Fibre Optic link to the Mt Pleasant and Mt Canopus Observatories. A 10 gigabit per second fibre optic link to the Mt Pleasant and Mt Canopus observatories will enable a wide range of new and exciting research opportunities. Very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) allows imaging of distant astronomical objects with much higher resolution than any other technique. The proposed fibre optic link will revolutionise Australia's VLBI capability, giving it the world's most sensitive array, with enhanced reliability and faster access to results for researchers. This project will greatly facilitate studies of astrophysical processes in Galactic and extra-galactic environments as well as precision measurements of the Earth's crustal dynamics.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
Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE210100015
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$1,680,000.00
Summary
The Cherenkov Telescope Array - From Production towards Operation. The Cherenkov Telescope Array is a transformational facility in very-high-energy gamma-ray astronomy. It will be 10 times more sensitive than current instruments and will revolutionise many topics in high energy astrophysics, and in astro-particle physics such as dark matter. Over 1000 scientists from over 30 countries are involved and the first telescopes on the southern hemisphere site in Chile will be installed from about 2021 ....The Cherenkov Telescope Array - From Production towards Operation. The Cherenkov Telescope Array is a transformational facility in very-high-energy gamma-ray astronomy. It will be 10 times more sensitive than current instruments and will revolutionise many topics in high energy astrophysics, and in astro-particle physics such as dark matter. Over 1000 scientists from over 30 countries are involved and the first telescopes on the southern hemisphere site in Chile will be installed from about 2021. This project will ensure Australia's contribution to complete the facility, leading into its operations phase (starting in 2027). It will also fund unique optical astronomy hardware that will enable Australian scientific leadership in supporting some of the Cherenkov Telescope Array's Key Science Projects.
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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
Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE150100070
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$270,000.00
Summary
The Cherenkov Telescope Array. The Cherenkov Telescope Array: The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is a major advance in very high energy gamma-ray astronomy. It will be ten times more sensitive than current instruments and will transform many topics in high energy astrophysics concerning extreme particle acceleration, and in astro-particle physics such as dark matter. Over 1000 scientists from over 25 countries are involved and prototype telescopes are under construction. This project will enabl ....The Cherenkov Telescope Array. The Cherenkov Telescope Array: The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is a major advance in very high energy gamma-ray astronomy. It will be ten times more sensitive than current instruments and will transform many topics in high energy astrophysics concerning extreme particle acceleration, and in astro-particle physics such as dark matter. Over 1000 scientists from over 25 countries are involved and prototype telescopes are under construction. This project will enable a hardware contribution to the pre-production array of telescopes, bringing with it full membership, plus access to all data and core science programmes of CTA. Australian astronomers can then influence astrophysics goals of CTA, and add new scientific value to Australia's radio astronomical facilities.Read moreRead less
Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE170100104
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$1,390,000.00
Summary
The Cherenkov Telescope Array - Production phase. This project aims to ensure Australia’s contribution to the five-year production phase of the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), a very high energy gamma-ray astronomy instrument that is expected to transform both high energy astrophysics and astro-particle physics. Gamma-ray astronomy probes extreme processes in the Universe such as exploding stars, black holes, and mysterious dark matter. The project will maintain Australian access to all data an ....The Cherenkov Telescope Array - Production phase. This project aims to ensure Australia’s contribution to the five-year production phase of the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), a very high energy gamma-ray astronomy instrument that is expected to transform both high energy astrophysics and astro-particle physics. Gamma-ray astronomy probes extreme processes in the Universe such as exploding stars, black holes, and mysterious dark matter. The project will maintain Australian access to all data and key science programmes of the CTA. Australian astronomers will be able to directly influence the major astrophysics goals of CTA, and link in with Australia's flagship astronomical infrastructure. This is expected to benefit astrophysics, big data processing, electronics, atmospheric physics and optics.Read moreRead less
Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE130100198
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$315,000.00
Summary
The SAMI facility: a revolutionary multi-object hexabundle spectrograph. SAMI is a new Australian instrument concept that uses fibre bundles to obtain detailed spectroscopic data at many positions across the face of numerous galaxies at a time. Now that the technology has been shown to work, with spectacular results, the project aims to turn this concept into a general-user facility at the Anglo-Australian Telescope.
Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE180100009
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$340,160.00
Summary
Doubling the power of a unique astronomical survey facility. This project aims to double the number of fibres in the spectrograph on the UK Schmidt Telescope and so double the number of stars and galaxies that it can observe simultaneously. This would allow rapid and timely completion of two major projects: the Taipan galaxy survey would be first to test a potential discrepancy in the expansion rate of the universe that may signal new physics, while the FunnelWeb stellar survey would (in tandem ....Doubling the power of a unique astronomical survey facility. This project aims to double the number of fibres in the spectrograph on the UK Schmidt Telescope and so double the number of stars and galaxies that it can observe simultaneously. This would allow rapid and timely completion of two major projects: the Taipan galaxy survey would be first to test a potential discrepancy in the expansion rate of the universe that may signal new physics, while the FunnelWeb stellar survey would (in tandem with two space missions) identify potential nearby exoplanets and trace the history of the Milky Way. The benefits include high scientific impact for the two surveys, international showcasing of the Australian Starbug technology, and a national astronomical survey facility for the next decade.Read moreRead less
How do galaxies get their gas? This project aims to build new understanding about the fundamental physics behind how galaxies get their gas. The way gas is accreted in galaxies affects how stars are made and what galaxies look like, including our own milky way. This project expects to build a new robotic instrument for three dimensional spectroscopy of galaxies, called Hector-I, to establish and run the Hector Galaxy Survey, the largest of its kind ever conducted. This survey data set will under ....How do galaxies get their gas? This project aims to build new understanding about the fundamental physics behind how galaxies get their gas. The way gas is accreted in galaxies affects how stars are made and what galaxies look like, including our own milky way. This project expects to build a new robotic instrument for three dimensional spectroscopy of galaxies, called Hector-I, to establish and run the Hector Galaxy Survey, the largest of its kind ever conducted. This survey data set will underpin broad investigations of gas accretion and the impact on the physical properties of galaxies. The project will clarify why our own galaxy looks so different to others, demonstrate Australian technologies for future commercialisation on international facilities, and train students for a high quality workforce.Read moreRead less