More information: Postgraduate opportunities, PhD booklet 2021 (pdf) Application deadlines:
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In November 2016, the CEA moved into the brand new Ogden Centre for Fundamental Physics building, designed by the world renowned Studio Daniel Libeskind. The new building now houses all three astronomy groups in the Department of Physics, including the Centre for Advanced Instrumentation and the Institute for Computational Cosmology, as well as the Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy.
![]() The new Ogden Centre for Fundamental Physics building. |
Mission: Observational astronomy and astrophysics is the fundamental foundation of our understanding of the formation and evolution of stars, galaxies, black holes and large-scale structure in the Universe. The Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy’s core mission is to extend society’s knowledge and understanding of the Universe we inhabit. We achieve this by supporting our internationally-leading staff to pursue innovative research programmes and to exploit these to train the next generation of world class early-stage researchers. The expertise of our staff encompasses the key observational techniques needed to develop and exploit the next generation of multi-wavelength surveys for galaxies, black holes and large-scale structure, and the detailed study of their properties.
Research programme: The CEA's research programme makes extensive use of the world's forefront observational facilities to test advanced theoretical models of galaxy and structure formation developed in Durham. We utilise the largest ground-based optical and near-infrared telescopes including those in Chile, Hawaii, Australia and the Canary Islands, and we have been particularly successful at obtaining time on the Hubble Space Telescope and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array. The multi-wavelength aspects of our programme focus on sub-millimetre and radio observations from ground-based facilities in Hawaii, Spain, Australia and the Americas and X-ray observations from space-based facilities such as the Chandra, Newton and NuSTAR X-ray satellites. Follow the Research Topics link to find out more about our research.
A key component of our research explores mass accretion onto black holes and is outlined both here (see Research Topics link on the left hand panel) and on our high-energy astrophysics web pages. We also closely interact with staff in the Centre for Advanced Instrumentation to aid the development and commissioning of instrumentation purpose-built for studies relevant to this area. In addition we pursue a number of common projects on galaxy formation, large-scale structure and the nature of the cosmic dark matter with theoretical research staff within the Institute for Computational Cosmology (ICC) at Durham.
The Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy is one of three major partners in the Durham Astronomy Research Cluster. We welcome requests from individuals with strong science backgrounds who wish to join us as Research Fellows, Postdoctoral Researchers or Graduate Students.
Our latest publications
2019 MNRAS, 482, 5316 (on-line)
Mizumoto M., Ebisawa K., Tsujimoto M., Done C., Hagino K., Odaka H.
X-ray reverberation lags of the Fe-K line due to AGN disc winds
2019 MNRAS, 482, L65 (on-line)
Klitsch A., Zwaan M. A., Péroux C., Smail I., Oteo I., Popping G., Swinbank A. M., Ivison R. J., Biggs A. D.
ALMACAL V: absorption-selected galaxies with evidence for excited ISMs
2019 MNRAS, 482, 3550 (on-line)
Krumholz M. R., Adamo A., Fumagalli M., Calzetti D.
SLUG IV: a novel forward-modelling method to derive the demographics of star clusters
2019 MNRAS, 482, 3261 (on-line)
Kulier A., Padilla N., Schaye J., Crain R. A., Schaller M., Bower R. G., Theuns T., Paillas E.
The evolution of the baryon fraction in haloes as a cause of scatter in the galaxy stellar mass in the EAGLE simulation
Contact Details
Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy,Ogden Centre for Fundament Physics - West,
Department of Physics,
Durham University,
South Road,
Durham DH1 3LE
Tel: 44 (0)191 3343635
Latest News
Nov 2020:
* Analysis of the metal
content in distant
star-forming galaxies
Oct 2020:
* CEA astronomer
awarded Future
Leaders Fellowship
* Invisible galaxies
* Metals in the
haloes around galaxies
Sept 2020:
* Connecting local
elliptical galaxies and
high-redshift
starbursts
Conferences/Workshops

Durham-Edinburgh
eXtragalactic Workshop,
online Jan 6-7th 2021.

Astro-Statistics for
1st or 2nd year Phd
Students - online from
Jan 11th 2021.

Stellar Feedback and
Galaxy Evolution
Ascona, Switzerland
25-30 July 2021.

meeting has been
POSTPONED
due to CoVID-19