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Finding Gravitational Lenses, the Herschel Way…

Posted in The Universe and Stuff with tags astronomy, Cardiff University, Cosmology, galaxies, gravitational lenses, H-ATLAS, Herschel Space Observatory on November 4, 2010 by telescoper

It’s nice to have the chance to blog for once about some exciting astrophysics rather than doom and gloom about budget cuts. Tomorrow (5th November) sees the publication of a long-awaited article (by Negrello et al.) in the journal Science (abstract here) that presents evidence of discovery of a number of new gravitational lens systems using the Herschel Space Observatory.

There is a press release accompanying this paper on the Cardiff University website, and a longer article on the Herschel Outreach website, from which I nicked the following nice graphic (click on it for a bigger version).

This shows rather nicely how a gravitational lens works: it’s basically a concentration of matter (in this case a galaxy) along the line of sight from the observer to a background source (in this case another galaxy). Light from the background object gets bent by the foreground object, forming multiple images which are usually both magnified and distorted. Gravitational lensing itself is not a new discovery but what is especially interesting about the new results are that they suggest a much more efficient way of finding lensed systems than we have previously had.

In the past they have usually been found by laboriously scouring optical (or sometimes radio) images of very faint galaxies. A candidate lens (perhaps a close-set group of images with similar colours), then this candidate is followed up with detailed spectroscopy to establish whether the images are actually all at the same redshift, which they should be if they are part of a lens system. Unfortunately, only about one-in-ten of candidate lens systems found this way turn out to be actual lenses, so this isn’t a very efficient way of finding them. Even multiple needles are hard to find in a haystack.

The new results have emerged from a large survey, called H-ATLAS, of galaxies detected in the far-infrared/submillimetre part of the spectrum. Even the preliminary stages of this survey covered a sufficiently large part of the sky – and sufficiently many galaxies within the region studied – to suggest the presence of a significant population of galaxies that bear all the hallmarks of being lensed.

The new Science article discusses five surprisingly bright objects found early on during the course of the H-ATLAS survey. The galaxies found with optical telescopes in the directions of these sources would not normally be expected to be bright at the far-infrared wavelengths observed by Herschel. This suggested that the galaxies seen in visible light might be gravitational lenses magnifying much more distant background galaxies seen by Herschel. With the relatively poor resolution that comes from working at long wavelengths, Herschel can’t resolve the individual images produced by the lens, but does collect more photons from a lensed galaxy than an unlensed one, so it appears much brighter in the detectors.

Detailed spectroscopic follow-up using ground-based radio and sub-millimetre telescopes confirmed these ideas : the galaxies seen by the optical telescopes are much closer, each ideally positioned to create gravitational lenses.

These results demonstrate that gravitational lensing is probably at work in all the distant and bright galaxies seen by Herschel. This in turn, suggests that in the full H-ATLAS survey might provide huge numbers of gravitational lens systems, enough to perform a number of powerful statistical tests of theories of galaxy formation and evolution. It’s a bit of a cliché to say so, but it looks like Herschel will indeed open up a new window on the distant Universe.

P.S. For the record, although I’m technically a member of the H-ATLAS consortium, I was not directly involved in this work and am not among the authors.

P.P.S. This announcement also gives me the opportunity to pass on the information that all the data arising from the H-ATLAS science demonstration phase is now available online for you to play with!

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The Waiting Game

Posted in Science Politics with tags astronomy, research grants, STFC on November 4, 2010 by telescoper

I thought I’d briefly don my “community service” hat and send a message to any astronomers reading this who have “responsive mode” grant applications currently under review by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC).

Obviously I can’t discuss any details here (or anywhere else for that matter), but I’ve had a few email enquiries about when the results are likely to be known. I’m sure the chair of the Astronomy Grants Panel, Andy Lawrence (aka the e-astronomer) has had even more. It seems worth posting a brief message to make the situation as clear as possible to anyone waiting for news.

The current situation is that all the rolling grant specialist panel presentations have now finished, but the full AGP has to reconvene later in November to complete the process of assigning a final ranking to all the applications.

The process is, therefore, ongoing. It would be even if it were not for the fact that the Comprehensive Spending Review results were only announced on 20th October. It will therefore still be some time before STFC knows its budget for the next few years, and only when it knows that can it produce a delivery plan that stipulates how much of its funding will be available for research grants. And only after that is done will the Astronomy Grants Panel be able to determine its final proritisation, after which STFC will decide precisely which proposals will be funded and which don’t make the cut. In an ideal world this process would be finished by the end of this calendar year, but I’m afraid there’s quite a lot of evidence that we don’t live in an ideal world, especially as science funding is concerned.

So there you have the situation as clear as I can make it, which isn’t very clear at all. You’ll all just have to wait. The most important thing is not to assume that it’s going to be bad news if you hear nothing quickly…

Diem noctis exspectatione perdunt, noctem lucis metu.

(Seneca, De Brevitate Vitae)

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Rapture

Posted in Art, The Universe and Stuff with tags astronomy, Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2010, Tom Lowe on November 1, 2010 by telescoper

Glorious video of timelapse photography by, Tom Lowe, the winner of the 2010 Astronomy Photographer of the Year award.

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Outreach…

Posted in Biographical, Books, Talks and Reviews, The Universe and Stuff with tags astronomy, Just Friends, Outreach, public engagement, Science on October 28, 2010 by telescoper

Regular readers of this blog – both of them – will know that I engage, from time to time, in acitivities we are usually obliged to call “outreach”. For once, the OED gives a meaning which is pretty much spot on what is involved:

The activity of an organization in making contact and fostering relations with people unconnected with it, esp. for the purpose of support or education and for increasing awareness of the organization’s aims or message.

For us scientists this word means going out into the wider community (often, but not exclusively, in schools) and talking about our work to generate interest in science and also to explain what we do to the people who actually pay for it, i.e. taxpayers. This general activity is increasingly important for science generally, and astronomy has a particularly important part to play as it is not only very photogenic – there are lots of wonderful images to excite and engage the audience – but it also gives people the chance to think, at least for a while, about matters far removed from the mundanities of everyday life.

Most astronomy departments in Britain have very active outreach programmes and their importance is even recognized in, e.g., research grant applications, which nowadays require a statement about “public engagement” to be submitted alongside the technical science case.

I think colleagues in more mainstream subjects (e.g. condensed matter physics) often get a bit jealous of the astronomers in their department gallivanting off to all kinds of venues in the evenings to give talks. We usually say that what we’re doing is raising the profile of the discipline so that more students apply to do physics, justify our existence to the taxpayer, and so on. All very laudible things to do, but I have to admit I don’t really think of those things when I go off to do a popular talk. It’s not for the money either; I’m not famous enough to command a fee for public speaking, but even if I were I would probably waive it. The real reason I do these things because I like talking, especially about astrophysics, and especially to people who are interested enough to make a positive decision to come and listen.

Anyway, the reason for that rambling preamble about outreach was that yesterday I went to London to give a talk – in the upstairs room of a nice pub in the Marylebone area of Central London – for a group called Just Friends. When I was invited to give the talk I was a bit nervous because previous speakers had included David Starkey and Sir Roy Strong, as well as fellow astronomer and rising media star Marek Kukula, who actually turned up last night to lend me moral (?) support. My nervousness was, of course, entirely unjustified and the audience turned out to be very friendly.

I’ll leave it to the reader to work out what sort of people make up Just Friends, but there’s a bit of a clue in the list of previous speakers…

Because of the unusual location I had to take my own data projector along, which meant lugging it around all evening. Actually it wasn’t really “my own”. I borrowed it from a colleague in the department, so I was a bit nervous about breaking it as well as unsure how well it would work. As it happens, it all worked fine and I handed it back safely this morning.

Anyway, the room turned out to be very full and my talk – a variation on the theme of the Cosmic Web – seemed to go down quite well with an audience which was considerably less rowdy than I’d expected given that the talk was in a pub. After a fairly lengthy Q+A at the end and a quick drink, I headed back to Paddington for the 22.45 train back to Cardiff, getting home about 1.30am, exhausted but having enjoyed the evening enormously.

I suppose the price for having a captive audience and the chance to meet interesting new people at events like this is that you end up spreading yourself a bit thin. The morning after it feels less like outreach and more like overreach. The younger folk in the department seem to cope much better with all this scooting about. I’m definitely getting old.

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The Great Escape? Not yet.

Posted in Finance, Politics, Science Politics with tags astronomy, Particle Physics, RCUK, Science funding, Science is Vital, STFC on October 20, 2010 by telescoper

I expected to wake up this morning with the blues all round my bed, about the results of the Comprehensive Spending Review about to be announced today, but news appearing in the Guardian and the BBC websites last night suggested that the UK Science budget may, repeat may, be spared the worst of the cuts.

This news has been greeted with euphoria in the science community, as we were expecting much worse than the settlement suggested by the news. The RCUK budget, it seems, will be fixed in cash terms around £3.5 billion per annum for four years, as will the approximately £1bn distributed for research through HEFCE’s QR mechanism. This translates into a real terms cut that depends on what figure you pick for inflation over this period. The Treasury suggests it will corresponding to a 10% reduction figured that way, but inflation has defied predictions and remained higher than expected over the past three years so things could be different. Also important to note is that this budget (amounting to around £4.6 billion) is to be ring-fenced within RCUK.

So why the apparent change of heart? Well, I don’t know for sure, but I think the Science is Vital campaign played a very big part in this. Huge congratulations are due to Jenny Rohn and the rest of the team for doing such a fantastic job. The Guardian makes this clear, stating that science is usually a non-issue for the Treasury, but this time it was

high on the political radar because strong representations have been made by the scientific community about what they have described as “long term and irreversible” damage to the UK economy if there are deep cuts to research funding.

That means everyone who wrote to their MP or lobbied or went on the demo really did make a difference. Give yourselves a collective pat on the back!

BUT (and it’s a very big BUT) we’re by no means out of the woods yet, at least not those of us who work in astronomy and particle physics. As the BBC article makes clear, the level cash settlement for RCUK comes with an instruction that “wealth creation” be prioritised. The budget for RCUK covers all the research councils, who will now have to make their pitch to RCUK for a share of the pie. It’s unlikely that it will be flat cash for everyone. There will be winners and losers, and there’s no prize for guessing who the likely losers are.

The performance of the STFC Executive during the last CSR should also be born in mind. STFC did very poorly then at a time when the overall funding allocation for science was relatively generous, and precipitated a financial crisis that STFC’s management still hasn’t properly come to grips with. The track-record doesn’t inspire me with confidence. Moreover, at a town meeting in London in December 2007 at which the Chief Executive of STFC presented a so-called delivery plan to deal with the crisis he led his organisation into, he confidently predicted a similarly poor settlement in the next CSR. Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy. Let’s hope they get their act together better this time.

Taking all this together it remains by no means improbable that the STFC budget could be squeezed until the pips squeak in order to liberate funds to spend elsewhere within RCUK on things that look more likely to generate profits quickly. The nightmare scenario I mentioned a few days ago is still on the cards.

As we all know, STFC’s budget is dominated by large fixed items so its science programme is especially vulnerable. As the BBC puts it

So any cut in [STFC’s] budget will be greatly magnified and it is expected that it will have to withdraw from a major programme. Alternatively, it would have to cutback or close one of its research institutes.

We could have to wait until December to find out the STFC budget, so the anxiety is by no means over. However, the ring-fencing of RCUK’s budget within BIS may bring that forward a bit as it would appear to suggest one level of negotations could be skipped. We might learn our fate sooner than we thought.

Overall, this is a good result in the circumstances. Although it’s a sad state of affairs when a >10% real terms cut is presented as a success, it’s far less bad than many of us had expected. But I think STFC science remains in grave danger. It’s not an escape, just a stay of execution.

But there is one important lesson to be learned from this. When the STFC crisis broke three years ago, reaction amongst scientists was muted. Fearful of rocking the boat, we sat on our hands as the crisis worsened. I hope that the success of the Science is Vital campaign has convinced you that keeping quiet and not making a fuss is exactly the wrong thing to do.

If only we’d been braver three years ago.

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STFC Budget 2010-11

Posted in Finance, Science Politics with tags astronomy, Particle Physics, STFC on October 14, 2010 by telescoper

Just a quick post to point out that the Science and Technology Facilities Council have released a reasonably complete breakdown of their current budget. I’m sure many readers working in astronomy and particle physics will find it interesting reading, though others will probably find it incredibly boring.

Here it is, for easy reference, in bits, generated by a clumsy cut-and-paste-technique wholly unbefitting the hi-tech nature of STFC, starting with the PPAN Programme:

and now the rest

For those of you not up with the accounting lingo, “near cash” means assets investments and other things that could in principle be exchanged for cash in a relatively short period of time.

These are, of course, the figures before the impending cuts take place….

There’s a much more legible version of the whole thing here.

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(Guest Post) STFC – It isn’t just about money

Posted in Science Politics with tags Adrian Smith, astronomy, George Efstathiou, Michael Sterling, Physics, Royal Society, STFC on October 4, 2010 by telescoper

The following piece was written by Professor George Efstathiou, FRS, who is Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Cambridge and Director of the Kavli Institute for Cosmology. The views expressed therein are George’s own, but I’m not saying that out of a desire to distance myself from his opinions. As a matter of fact, I was one of the people who signed the petition he describes in the article…

–o–

As Peter has reported on this site, physicists around the country are anxiously awaiting the results of the forthcoming Comprehensive Spending Review. Scientists whose research is supported by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) are particularly anxious. Since its creation, STFC has gone through two difficult scientific prioritisation exercises. Many excellent projects have been cancelled and grants supporting University groups have been cut savagely, by about 35%. STFC science has already descended into the Royal Society’s ‘game over‘ scenario. All of this has happened before the consequences of the economic crisis have hit the science budget. STFC has left itself uniquely poorly placed amongst the Research Councils to absorb further reductions following the CSR.

It is for this reason, that I and a few others organised a petition expressing a loss of confidence in the Chief Executive of STFC. The petition was signed by 916 researchers, including 162 Professors and 18 Fellows of the Royal Society. It was formally submitted to the STFC Chair (Michael Sterling) on 1st July together with an explicit request that STFC Council should review its role in this loss of confidence.

People will have had many different reasons for signing the petition. I made my views public well in advance (see my Letter to Lord Drayson). In all of my letters to ministers and others concerning the STFC ‘crisis’, I have never asked for more money. More money would help, of course, but this is utterly unrealistic in the current economic circumstances. No, over the last three years I have been lobbying for good governance. The strutural difficulties with STFC were easy to identify and I believe that with good governance the STFC programme could have been managed without such a catastrophic loss of science. Over three years, STFC have failed to establish a compelling narrative, strategy and constructive engagement with its science community. When one bears in mind that about 40 % of Physics staff work in areas for which STFC is the primary funding source, the consequences of the STFC crisis for University Departments, and the rest of the science base, are indeed serious.

So, whatever the outcome of the CSR, there are governance issues that we should be concerned about. There are three that I would like to raise here:

1. Fellowships and grants. Senior scientists from outside the UK point to the Fellowships and Rolling Grants as two of the most effective features of the UK funding system. Both are now under threat. I was responsible for making the case for the current 5 year system to PPARC Council. In addition to the evident benefits of continuity and reduction in peer review, Council need to understand that recruitment for postdocs involves a substantial lead time. If we are to compete for the best postdocs around the world (and not lose our best post docs), grant funds must be committed four years in advance. The 5 year rolling grant system, even with tapers, allows groups to advertise posts on an international timetable and to vire funds to maximise science output. Any move to responsive mode 3 year grants is guaranteed to deliver less science for a fixed amount of money. I would vigorously defend the Fellowships. Fellowships encourage scientific independence and provide a valuable “bottom-up” correction to the increasingly narrow “top-driven” science programme of STFC. Attacks on Fellowships and Rolling Grants will inevitably lead to a more introspective and less internationally competitive science programme.

2. The Composition of STFC Council. STFC Council, with a minority of leading research scientists, differs from other Research Councils. I have had several vigorous discussions with Michael Sterling concerning this issue and, in particular, the recent decision by BIS to appoint three new non-academic members to STFC. This led me to write a long letter to Adrian Smith (Director General of the Research Councils) reproduced here. Professor Smith replied that he approved of the present balance of Council and thought that it was compatible with the recommendations of previous reviews. I will leave readers to decide whether they agree. This is not a minor point. My experience on PPARC Council was that `lay members’ can often provide interesting perspectives on problems, but if they lack understanding of the science (sometimes alarmingly so) they will tend to accept the recommendations of the Executive. STFC needs a scientifically strong Council. Competent management is not enough. It is easy to keep within budget – you can be tough about cutting things. It is much harder to maximise the amount of science that you can do on a fixed budget. For that you need a scientific strategy and scientific judgement.

3. The New CEO. The search has begun for a new Chief Executive. There is one school of thought that a suitable candidate may be found from the corporate sector. Someone who may not understand the science, but would be a capable manager and communicator. I think that this would be a disaster. In my view, it is essential that a new CEO have an understanding of the science programme at STFC and should be prepared to act as an enthusiastic advocate for STFC science. We need a CEO who can engage constructively with the academic community and, when times are tough, articulate a strategy to limit the loss of science rather than gloat at our misfortune.

It would be great to have more money for STFC science. But money isn’t everything – we need to pay attention to governance issues as well. If we had been braver back in 2008 and openly challenged the Executive, we might not be in such a weak position now. We should not be so reticent in the future.

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Star-gazer

Posted in Poetry, The Universe and Stuff with tags astronomy, Louis MacNeice, Poetry on September 11, 2010 by telescoper

Forty-two years ago (to me if to no one else
The number is of some interest) it was a brilliant starry night
And the westward train was empty and had no corridors
So darting from side to side I could catch the unwonted sight
Of those almost intolerably bright
Holes, punched in the sky, which excited me partly because
Of their Latin names and partly because I had read in the textbooks
How very far off they were, it seemed their light
Had left them (some at least) long years before I was.

And this remembering now I mark that what
Light was leaving some of them at least then,
Forty-two years ago, will never arrive
In time for me to catch it, which light when
It does get here may find that there is not
Anyone left alive
To run from side to side in a late night train
Admiring it and adding noughts in vain.

(written in 1963, by Louis MacNeice)

Astronomy Photographer of the Year

Posted in Art, The Universe and Stuff with tags astronomy, Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2010, National Maritime Museum, Tom Lowe on September 10, 2010 by telescoper

Amidst the doom and gloom of spending cuts and Ministerial incompetence we’re sometimes liable to forget what it’s all about. Last night provided us with a reminder, in the form of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition held at the National Maritime Museum (site of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich). There’s a varied selection of gorgeous entries on today’s Guardian, but this stunning image by Tom Lowe was the overall winner. Congratulations to him!

STFC Grants Consultation

Posted in Science Politics with tags astronomy, Particle Physics, research grants, STFC, Universities on August 31, 2010 by telescoper

I thought I’d put my community service badge on today and draw the attention of any astronomers or particle physicists reading this blog that the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) is consulting on proposed changes to the ways it funds research grants. I can hardly over-emphasize the importance of this issue, especially for those of us working in University departments who rely on grant funding in order to carry out our research.

There is a consultation form on which you can post comments on the alternatives outlined in the accompanying document.

Regrettably, only three options are offered. In brief, they are

All grants to be 3-year “standard” grants (i.e. no more “rolling” grants at all)
Some (a small number?) of 6-year “core” grants introduced, mainly to cover the cost of technical support staff.
The status quo (i.e. mixture of 3-year “standard” and 5-year “rolling” grants).

I’m not going to comment on these here, as my intention is just to draw your attention to the fact that this consultation is open and that the deadline is very soon: Monday 6th September 2010, at 4pm. I would have thought it’s probably a good idea for groups to submit collective responses where possible, but I’m sure all feedback would be welcomed.

We don’t know how much of a grant programme will remain after the forthcoming Comprehensive Spending Review, but it’s even more important to make the system as efficient and fair as possible when we know money is going to be tight.

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In the Dark