Detailed understanding of molecular collisions, and the resulting energy transfer and/or reaction is vital to improved modelling of a wide range of important chemical environments, including planetary atmospheres, combustion and plasma systems and astrochemistry.
Stellar physics is now entering a new, high-precision era with many ESO, ESA and other international projects. The data obtained with two successful satellites, CoRoT and Kepler, and from ground-based project such as SuperWASP, allow the analysis of pulsations of thousands of stars, in synergy with exoplanet research.
The Keele astrophysics group are part of an international project to search for planets orbiting binary star systems using radial velocity measurements.
The VISTA Magellanic Clouds survey (VMC) is near its completion of the – by far - deepest and most detailed near-infrared mapping of the nearby Magellanic Clouds galaxies, the region in between them, and several flanking fields.
The study of eclipsing binary star systems is one of the most mature and rewarding areas of stellar physics, offering the unique opportunity to determine the masses and radii of distant stars directly from observational data.
Prof Hirschi and his group combine 3D hydrodynamics and 1D stellar evolution simulations to further our understanding of the evolution and fate of stars.
