Our top-rated Physics department has made significant contributions to an innovative international project that's shedding new light on the mysteries of our universe.
The Physics of the Accelerating Universe Survey (PAUS) has released a cosmic distance catalogue that promises to revolutionise our understanding of the universe's formation and evolution.
Our involvement in the PAUS project has been crucial from the outset.
Our Physics department played a pivotal role in securing valuable observing time on the 4-meter William Herschel Telescope (WHT) in La Palma, Spain.
This achievement was instrumental in allowing the project to move forward and collect its impressive dataset.
Our Physics department’s expertise in cosmological simulations has been put to excellent use in the PAUS project.
They have created mock PAUS surveys – essentially virtual universes – that help researchers better understand and interpret the real-world data collected by the telescope.
These simulations are vital tools in untangling the complex web of information gathered by the survey.
Perhaps most importantly, our researchers have been at the forefront of analysing the wealth of data acquired by PAUS.
The survey has collected information on over 1.8 million objects, observed over 200 nights between 2015 and 2019.
Our analysis of this data is helping to unlock new insights into the nature of dark matter and dark energy, the mysterious forces that shape our universe.
The PAUS catalogue, now available to the scientific community, provides unprecedented precision in measuring cosmic distances.
This information is crucial for creating more accurate maps of the universe and understanding how cosmic structures form and evolve over time.
Our Department of Physics is ranked 69th in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2024. Visit our Physics webpages for more information on our undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.
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