Welcome
I'm currently a visiting scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, MA, USA. Until October 2011 I was a Marie Curie research fellow in the Astrophysics & Space Research (ASR) Group at the University of Birmingham, and I am still working closely with friends there on a variety of projects. My research mainly focuses on galaxy groups and elliptical galaxies, using X-ray data from the Chandra and XMM-Newton satellite observatories. One of the goals of my fellowship is to broaden this to include low-frequency radio observations, primarily from the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope in Pune, India.
Recent results
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I've had the good fortune to work on a number of interesting systems, including the poor cluster AWM 4, shown to the left. This is a system of around 50 galaxies dominated by the giant elliptical NGC 6051. Using a combination of GMRT low-frequency radio data and a deep Chandra X-ray observation, we investigated the interaction between the 10 million K gas of the cluster halo (blue in the image) and the hundred thousand light-year long jets of relativistic particles (shown in red) thrown out by the black hole in the core of NGC 6051.
Chandra was able to resolve the small-scale cooling region in the core of NGC 6051 which has fuels the black hole, and allowed us to measure the total energy released in the jets, about 1051 J, equivalent to the radiant output of the Milky Way over a million years. We were also able to examine the particle content of the radio lobes, and show that the jets have caused motions in the hot gas, lifting about a million solar masses of Iron out of the galaxy (where it had been deposited by supernovae) and mixing it into the halo. More detail can be found in two papers: the first describes the cool core, the properties of the radio jets and lobes, and the AGN energy output in AWM 4; the second focuses on the uplift of enriched gas by the radio jets.
What's new
- 2012/04/17: Fill Humphrey's paper on NGC 1521, on which I'm a co-author, submitted to ApJ and posted to the arXiv.
- 2012/03/28: Fourth CLoGS GMRT proposal accepted with full time allocation, meaning that the full CLoGS sample will be radio-complete at 610/235 MHz by autumn 2012! Deep 150~MHz observations of three of our most interesting systems also approved.
- 2012/02: Started my 8-month visit to Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
- 2012/01/09: Visiting the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics in Pune, India, for a month to study low-frequency radio analysis techniques and do a little observing at the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope.
- 2011/12/07: Two proposals approved: 104 ks of XMM-Newton time to complete the first half of the CLoGS group sample, and 12.5 hours of EVLA time to look at one of my favourite radio galaxies.
- 2011/10/26: Added a star trails image and video from some recent evenings at the Wast Hills observatory to the Non-work page.
- 2011/09/24: GMRT proposal `CLoGS - The Complete Local-Volume Groups Sample, part 3 ' awarded 100% of time requested!
- 2011/07/25-29: In Leiden, attending the Lorentz Center workshop Groups and Clusters of Galaxies: Confronting Theory with Observations.
- 2011/07/08-15: In Boston to attend Structure in Clusters and Groups of Galaxies in the Chandra Era and work with my collaborators at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
- 2011/06/27-30: At The X-ray Universe 2011 meeting in Berlin.
- 2011/06/14: Paper accepted by MNRAS and posted to the arXiv: Interaction between the intergalactic medium and central radio source in the NGC 4261 group of galaxies.
- 2011/05/04: Gave a seminar to the Extragalactic and Cosmology group at Durham University.
- 2011/04/15: Looks like I'll be giving a talk at The X-ray Universe 2011 in Berlin, in June. The title is `AGN feedback in galaxy groups: a combined X-ray/low-frequency radio view'.
- 2011/04/14: Paper accepted by ApJ and posted to the arXiv: Heating the hot atmospheres of galaxy groups and clusters with cavities: the relationship between jet power and low-frequency radio emission.
- 2011/03/21: My recent work on AGN feedback in the poor cluster AWM 4 featured in the SAO Weekly Science Update.
- 2011/03/18: GMRT proposal `CLoGS - The Complete Local-Volume Groups Sample, part 2' awarded 100% of time requested!
- 2011/03/07: Main paper for our GMRT/X-ray study of groups accepted and posted to the archive: Giacintucci et al. 2011.
- 2011/02/03: Added link to website for Structure in Clusters and Groups of Galaxies in the Chandra Era, the 2011 Chandra workshop, for which I'm a member of the SOC.
- 2011/01/23-30: Visiting the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
- 2011/01/18: Web pages for the Complete Local-Volume Groups Sample online.
- 2010/12/06-10: Visiting the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics to work with my collaborators and catch up on changes since I left last year.
- 2010/12/01: XMM-Newton proposal `CLoGS - The Complete Local-Volume Groups Sample' awarded 175ks of time! (+104ks C-time)
- 2010/11/11-12: In Germany to serve on the XMM-Newton galaxies time allocation panel.
- 2010/10/11-15: At LOFAR Data Analysis School 2010.
- 2010/10/04: Two papers accepted and posted to the arXiv: O'Sullivan et al. on AGN driven enrichment in AWM4, and David et al. on AGN driven weather and multiphase gas in NGC 5044.
- 2010/09/27-28: This year's Birmingham-Nottingham Extragalactic Workshop AGN: populations, parameters and powers, my talk now up on the posters and presentations page.
- 2010/09/08: GMRT proposal `CLoGS - The Complete Local-Volume Groups Sample' awarded time!
- 2010/07/13: Chandra Archive proposal `The History of AGN Feedback in Galaxy Groups: A Combined X-ray/Low-Frequency Radio Sample' approved!
- 2010/07/13: Added posters and presentations page.
- 2010/07/04: First announcement of this year's Birmingham-Nottingham Extragalactic Workshop AGN: populations, parameters and powers.
- 2010/06/10: Worrall et al. paper on radio/X-ray jets in NGC 4261 accepted by MNRAS and posted to the arXiv.
- 2010/05/13: Astrophysics group seminar at the University of Bristol.
- 2010/05/03: O'Sullivan et al. paper on AWM 4 accepted by MNRAS and posted to the arXiv.
- 2010/04/22-29: Visit to the Astrophysics Group of the University of Crete to work with Andreas Zezas, including a lunch talk.
- 2010/04/13 : This page goes live.