Kathy Romer

Delivering Cosmological Precision through the Application of X-ray Cluster EXpertise: CosmoXCX

Supervisors: Dr Kathy Romer and Dr Paul Giles  (in collaboration with these international consortia XMM Cluster Survey, Euclid, and the LSST Dark Energy Science Collaboration (LSST:DESC))

 After twenty-five years, Dark Energy is still a mystery. The late time acceleration of the expansion of the Universe remains one of the biggest unsolved puzzles in physics today. Clusters of galaxies play a vital role in Dark Energy experiments because they probe not only the geometry of the Universe but also probe the growth of structure. The field is set to take a major leap forward thanks to two new galaxy surveys that cover large areas of sky to unprecedented sensitivity: Euclid (from space) and LSST (from Chile). However, even with the superb cluster catalogues that Euclid and LSST will deliver, it will not be possible to derive cosmological constraints without additional information at other wavelengths: complimentary X-ray observations are essential. Kathy Romer, is recruiting two PhD students to work on the project titled Delivering Cosmological Precision through the Application of X-ray Cluster eXpertise} (CosmoXCX). Student 1 (who could be STFC funded) would construct and analyse sub-samples of clusters with X-ray observations. They will be responsible for the calibration of the Mass Observable Relation critical for the derivation of dark energy parameters from Euclid and LSST clusters. This is an observational, plus data analysis, project. Student 2 (who would be self funded) would be responsible for extracting cosmological parameters from cluster catalogues calibrated using X-ray observations. This is a theory, plus data interpretation, project. 

For more information, please refer to the document linked from this page: .