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Our knowledge of exoplanet atmospheres is undergoing a paradigm change following the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). High-quality spectroscopic observations of exoplanet atmospheres necessitate a careful reassessment of model assumptions that were sufficient in the pre-JWST era, in order to ensure the reliable inference of atmospheric properties (e.g. the chemical composition, temperature profile, and aerosol properties).
In this MSc (res) project, you will investigate new ways to improve state-of-the-art models of exoplanet spectra. You will also have the opportunity to apply these models to JWST observations of giant exoplanets, which will allow you to measure the atmospheric properties of worlds around other stars.

• The Centre for Exoplanet Science

Stars interact with their orbiting exoplanets in several ways. Tidal interactions can change the orbital dynamics of exoplanets, and the UV and X-ray irradiation from the star can erode the outer atmosphere of the exoplanet, especially when it is young. Stars also interact with their exoplanets through the outflows from their outer atmospheres (or coronae). These outflows can be seeded with clumps of cool, mainly neutral gas that have condensed out of the million-degree plasma of the star's corona. Recent observations of the lowest-mass stars have also revealed the signatures of what appears to be dust entrained in these clumps. Its origin is unclear, but one hypothesis is that it has been torn from the atmospheres of close-in, rocky exoplanets. Its presence may therefore reveal the rate at which exoplanet atmospheres can be stripped by their parent stars.
This project will investigate these clumps, using data-driven modelling of the composition and dynamics of these clumpy outflows.

• The Centre for Exoplanet Science

Molecular clouds are the birthplace of stars, and a crucial component of the baryon cycle of galaxies. However, as molecular hydrogen cannot be directly observed, its presence must be indirectly deduced by other gas tracers, such as carbon monoxide. Learning about how CO and molecular hydrogen are connected allows us to 'decode' observations of nearby galaxies and work out the properties of the dense star forming gas.
In this project you will take high resolution galaxy simulations and perform radiative transfer to work out the emission from the CO(2-1), and CO(1-0) lines and dust. These will be compared to the molecular gas in the simulations to determine how their ratio traces the dense gas. We will then use the simulation gas density distribution to investigate the turbulent velocity field of the cloud inside the galaxy. This is predicted to have a lognormal form, caused by the internal turbulence, plus a power law, caused by gravitational collapse. By comparing our galaxy simulations with observations, and analytical models we will unpick the physics of the interstellar medium of other galaxies on scales smaller than that can be observed by telescopes.
This work will be done in collaboration with the PHANGS galaxy survey with the results being directly used in future ALMA followup to JWST observations. You will have the opportunity to join team meetings remotely to see how such a large scientific collaboration runs.

This MSc Res is based in the School of Psychology & Neuroscience, with co-supervisors in Physics and Astronomy, and the Laidlaw Music Centre, and aimed at students with a Bachelor's Degree in Psychology, Education, or related fields. Your application should specify an MSc Res in the School of Psychology and Neuroscience.

The Musical Universe is a project to study the effect of interdisciplinary astronomy and music workshops on teachers and pupils in primary schools. These workshops introduce pupils to some topics in astronomy both within and outwith the standard curriculum, such as the planets in our Solar System, stars and stellar evolution, and our place in the Milky Way. Pupils then explore these topics further by composing and performing their own musical pieces, inspired by astronomy.

To date, we have delivered 6 workshops in local primary schools. We have asked pupils to complete surveys and teachers to participate in interviews (before the workshops, immediately after the workshops, and a few months after the workshops) to determine how these workshops impact teachers and pupils. An initial look at the data suggests that after receiving these workshops there is an increase in engagement and confidence in these subject areas in both teachers and pupils.

For this project, you will work deeply with the data available from the teacher interviews as well as the pupil questionnaires, allowing you to engage with both quantitative and qualitative data. You will transcribe the teacher interviews and carry out a thematic analysis to determine the impact that these interdisciplinary workshops have on teachers. You will also analyse data collected from school pupils detailing their thoughts on the sessions. We plan to run more sessions in the next academic year and you will be able to be involved in the delivery and assessment of these sessions.

Revealing how galaxies beyond our Milky Way enrich in metals is an observationally challenging problem, but with important implications for understanding how galaxies form and evolve. Metal enrichment tells us about gas inflows and outflows, as well as recycling of metals from star formation. The widely accepted model for extra-galactic chemical evolution has been that the higher metallicity of red and dead non-starforming galaxies is caused by them slowly ceasing their star formation ("quenching") as gas supplies run out, while steadily increasing in metallicity. A competing picture of galaxy quenching involves starbursts followed by a much more rapid shutdown in star formation, possibly via energy injected by the super massive black hole at the centre of the galaxy. We recently discovered that galaxies rapidly enrich in metals during these intense starbursts (Leung et al. 2024). This result implies that a large fraction of red and dead galaxies have higher metal contents because they have experienced an intense burst of star formation and rapid shutdown - a very different picture of galaxy evolution than previously posited. 

In this project we will expand on the work of Leung et al. to measure the chemical enrichment of a large number of galaxies from the SDSS (z~0), DESI (z~0.3) and upcoming MOONS (z~1) datasets. This will help us to understand the different processes that cause galaxies to stop forming stars, as a function of their mass and cosmic time. 

References: 
"Chemical evolution of local post-starburst galaxies: implications for the mass-metallicity relation"

"The star formation histories of z~1 post-starburst galaxies"

"Strangulation as the primary mechanism for shutting down star-formation in galaxies"

WEAVE is a brand new spectrograph for the William Herschel Telescope in the Canary Islands, currently completing commissioning. WEAVE IFU's very large field of view and extensive wavelength range makes it ideal for studying the detailed formation history of local galaxies, via spatially resolved kinematics, star formation histories and chemical properties. This project will focus on local post-starburst galaxies. These are a particularly interesting and unusual class of galaxies, which are apparently caught in a transition phase between gas-rich star-forming disks and gas-poor quiescent elliptical galaxies. The process(es) that cause this transition for the galaxy population as a whole are poorly constrained, and this is one of the key questions currently being addressed in the field of extra-galactic astronomy. Simulations reveal that the strong radial gradients observed in many post-starburst galaxies are hard to recreate, and are hugely sensitive to Active Galactic Nuclei feedback prescriptions assumed, making them ideal observational targets to better understand the processes triggering this transition in the local Universe.  

As an MSc (res) project we will analyse WEAVE science verification data taken of local post-starburst galaxies to investigate their kinematics and star formation histories. 

References:
Post-starburst galaxies in SDSS-IV MaNGA
Comparison of stellar populations in simulated and real post-starburst galaxies in MaNGA
Galaxy mergers can rapidly shut down star formation
The wide-field, multiplexed, spectroscopic facility WEAVE: Survey design, overview, and simulated implementation

Note: this project will only be offered if commissioning of the WEAVE instrument is successful and initial data is available for analysis at the start of the project. Please contact Dr Weijmans and Prof Wild for updated information.