Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation

Roy Maartens has recently published a book, [http://www.cambridge.org/9780521381154 Relativistic Cosmology (Cambridge University Press], with his collaborators George Ellis and Malcolm MacCallum. http://research.icg.port.ac.uk/files/bookcover.jpg Cosmology has been transformed by dramatic progress in high-precision observations and theoretical modelling. In the 21st century, we have a much more detailed picture of the Universe and its contents and history. This picture includes the mysterious 'dark energy' that is driving the Universe to expand faster and faster.

Several members of ICG who have been involved in teaching in the Portsmouth Applied Physics BA attended the 1st Annual Dinner of the [https://www.facebook.com/pages/University-of-Portsmouth-Physics-Society/344280898950494 Pompey Physics Society], on Thursday 10th May 2012 Marco Bruni and students raise a glass Martyn Garnder, Jacob and Macro Bruni [img_assist|nid=2459|title=Hooshyar Assadullahi, Matt Pieri and students|desc=|link=none|

Daniel Thomas is leading the organisation of the IAU Symposium S295, ‘The intriguing life of massive galaxies’ (http://www.icg.port.ac.uk/IAUS295), to be held during the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union in Beijing, China, in August 2012. After attracting a number of high-profile keynote speakers for this conference, over 200 high-quality applications for contributed talks and poster presentations have been received. This very high demand leads to an oversubscription of almost a factor six for the talks that can be allocated within the 3.5 day meeting. Summer 2012 is the right time for an IAU Symposium dedicated to the formation and evolution of massive galaxies. After the substantial progress in galaxy evolution over the past decade, recent and near-future advances in telescope technology and computer power for large-scale simulations, as well as the launch of massive galaxy surveys, will lead to a significant leap in our understanding of galaxy formation within the next few years. The aim of the IAU Symposium S295 is bringing together observers and theorists to discuss such recent progress in the field and to plan ahead for future challenges.

Several members of the ICG spent the day at the LOFAR-UK station in Chilbolton yesterday helping to repair damage to the array caused by stormy weather last month ([http://blog.lofar-uk.org/2012/01/lofar-uk-station-damaged-by-storms.html report on damage]). Carrying LBA parts: Here, Chris, Heather, Emma and Tom Hassell (from Southampton) are getting to work carrying a new LBA wire mesh to where one was blown away. [img_assist|nid=2305|title=Andreas and Josue|desc=working on fixing some of the damaged cables.

Robert Crittenden and David Wands attended a special meeting in Cambridge (January 4-8) to celebrate Professor Stephen Hawking's 70th birthday. The first three days were devoted to a scientific meeting featuring talks by students and friends of Prof. Hawking on fields he pioneered, including black hole physics and quantum cosmology. This was followed by a public symposium on January 8th, attended by many notables such as Richard Branson.

ICG scientists Maraston and Thomas, together with ESO scientists Coccato and Arnaboldi and Max Planck scientist Naab proposed one of the selected science session for the National Astronomical Meeting 2012 to be held in Manchester, http://www.jodrellbank.manchester.ac.uk/meetings/nam2012/. The session, called "Diving into the outer halo of elliptical galaxies: clues to galaxy formation and evolution", has been selected within 62 proposed themes.

A group of 11 runners - mostly from the ICG - will be taking part in the Great South Run on Sunday October 30th (http://www.greatrun.org). For most of us, this will be our first ever long distance run! ICG runners This event is a charity run and we will be raising funds for the Disaster Emergency Committee (DEC) East Africa crisis appeal.

The website for the IAU Symposium 'The intriguing life of massive galaxies' organised by Daniel Thomas is now live on http://www.icg.port.ac.uk/IAUS295 and has also been included in the International Astronomy Meetings list on http://cadcwww.dao.nrc.ca/cadcbin/meetings/getMeetings.pl?meeting_no=3522 The symposium will take place in the second week of the IAU's general assembly end of August 2012 in Beijing. An impressive list of high-profile invited speakers has already been confirmed for this meeting with an exciting programme including simulations and observations of galaxy formation and evolution across the Hubble Time.

Today, STFC announced that it will fund development work for the UK to contribute to the BigBOSS experiment . The award follows from a presentation made to the Particle Physics, Astronomy and Nuclear Physics Science Committee (PPAN) by UK project PI Will Percival last April. The money will be split between University College London, the University of Durham and the University of Portsmouth. BigBOSS is an exciting experiment, which would provide a 5,000 fibre multi-object spectrograph for the 4m Mayall telescope.

Yesterday, ESA selected Euclid as one of its Medium, or M, class missions for launch in 2019. Euclid will study dark energy through the use of gravitational lensing and galaxy clustering measurements. Several staff at the ICG are involved, including Bob Nichol, Will Percival and David Bacon.

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