Research

The key current survey themes of Durham Observational research may be summarised as follows.

• T. Shanks acts as UK PI of the 2dF QSO Redshift survey team with PDRA assistance from P.J. Outram and PhD students, F. Hoyle and A.D. Myers. The current 2dF QSO Survey now has 20000 QSO redshifts out of a target of 25000 and is a collaborative project with Oxford, LJMU and AAO.
• Durham also acts as a major node of the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey with C.S Frenk, S.M. Cole and P.M. Norberg playing key roles in the UK/Australian 2dF Galaxy team. The 2dF Galaxy Survey has currently obtained 200000 galaxy redshifts out of target of 250000. This survey is a collaborative projects with many UK and Australian Universities including Edinburgh and Oxford.
• The William Herschel Deep field: Some 170 hrs of 4-m class telescope imaging time at the WHT, UKIRT and Calar Alto has been devoted to the William Herschel Deep Field which has UBRI photometry to B=28.2 and HK photometry to K=23. The WHDF has also recently been the subject of a long exposure by the Chandra X-ray satellite. Key personnel in this area are N. Metcalfe (PDRA), G.S. Busswell, M. Vallbe (PhD students) and T. Shanks. This research team has also been involved in the exploitation of the Hubble Deep Fields -N, -S data. The WHDF is a prime target for the Gemini GMOS spectrograph currently being commissioned.
• X-ray Surveys: T. Shanks has been involved with deep ROSAT, ASCA and BeppoSAX surveys, first establishing that QSOs were a signicant source of the soft and hard X-ray backgrounds. The X-ray team led by Shanks, including P.J. Outram, and M. vallbe (Durham) plus collaborators at AAO, National Observatory of Greece and the Universities of Leicester, Edinburgh and Carnegie Mellon.
• Bulk motions R.L. Davies and J.R. Lucey are also involved in searches for bulk motions such as SMAC which uses fundamental plane distances for elliptical galaxies in Abell clusters to search for backside infall into the Great Attractor and so investigates whether bulk flows may extend to the super-large scales previously claimed by Lauer and Postman (1997).
• Theoretical Cosmology: Durham houses the powerful Computational Cosmology Group led by C.S. Frenk. For the past 10 years this team has worked at the cutting edge of numerical simulations for cosmology, first using N-body techniques but now also using hydrodynamic techniques, via both Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics and Adaptive Mesh codes. The group has been successful in getting UK JIF funding to build the Institute for Cosmological Computing and UK JREI funding for a massively parallel computer to increase the size of their numerical simulations. They are partners in the Virgo Consortium that has produced the Hubble Volume N-Body simulation which is extensively used to make mock QSO and Galaxy Catalogues for the 2dF Surveys.

Observationally, the Durham, Edinburgh and Oxford nodes are linked by being members of the 2dF Galaxy team. The Durham and Oxford nodes are linked via the 2dF QSO team. The 3 UK nodes are also linked by being members of the consortium of UK Universities who are building the VISTA telescope. They are also collaborating to build the GMOS spectrographs for Gemini N, S telescopes.

On the theory side, the Durham and Edinburgh nodes are linked by being members of the Virgo Consortium.

Role in network

The main expertise at Durham has that is relevant to this network lies in three areas: analysis of redshift surveys, analysis of imaging surveys and cosmological simulations.

• Some of the main 2dF QSO Redshift Survey analyses have been performed at Durham (eg Hoyle et al 2001) and we have also played a major role in working with the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey. Durham will be a leading member of the consortia which will start the extensions to the galaxy and QSO redshift surveys. Oxford and Edinburgh are members of these consortia.
• We shall be continuing to exploit Deep Imaging Surveys such as the Herschel Deep Field and we will use our experience in modelling the evolution of faint, high redshift galxies to help develop new photometric redshift techniwques
• The N-body and hydrodynamical simulations run by the Durham theory group will be the basis for attempting to set up mock spectroscopic and imaging all-sky surveys. The theorists will work closely with the observers to ensure that the resulting virtual Universes are as realistic as possible.

Key Staff

Most relevant recent references

Postdoctoral positions - terms and conditions

The successful applicants will be provided with a full statement detailing all Terms and Conditions of Employment.

The salary will be in the Academic Scale, depending on experience and qualifications

The post is full-time

The successful applicant is entitled to immediate entry into the Unversity's Superannuation Scheme

Applications

The closing date for applications is 15th Apr 2002

The SISCO postdoctoral position will be for 2 years in the first instance and extendable up to 3 years. Salary and research support will be at the standard UK rates.

Please apply to the following address:

Please quote reference "SISCO Postdoc" on all correspondence.

Predoctoral position - terms and conditions

The successful applicants will be provided with a full statement detailing all Terms and Conditions of Employment.

The Durham SISCO predoctoral position will be for 2 years. A minimum of 3 years funding is required for the PhD and so we are expecting that the successful candidate will be able to provide 1 year of funding from another source to cover PhD tuition fees and subsistence. Salary and research support will be at the standard UK rates for PhD students.

Applications

The closing date for applications is 15th Apr 2002 Please apply to the following address:

Please quote reference "SISCO Predoc" on all correspondence.