Observations carried out at far-infrared to sub-millimetre/millimetre wavelengths are of paramount importance to understand the formation and evolution of galaxies. In fact, most of the star formation activity in the universe occurred during a dust-obscured phase, in which the UV/optical light from newly born stars was absorbed by dust and re-emitted at far-IR/sub-mm/mm wavelengths.
Recently, the Herschel Space Observatory has explored the universe at those wavelengths with unprecedented sensitivity and resolution, providing a catalogue of hundreds of thousands of dust-obscured galaxies to be used for detailed statistical studies. By leading the widest-area extragalactic survey ever conducted with Herschel, i.e. the Herschel-ATLAS, the Cardiff University is at the forefront in the analysis and scientific exploitation of this large sample of dust-obscured galaxies. Furthermore, a new large format millimetre camera, the Mexico-UK Sub-millimetre Camera for Astronomy (MUSCAT), is currently under construction here in Cardiff and, once installed on the Large Millimetre Telescope (LMT) in Mexico in early 2018, it will carry out observations of some of the extragalactic fields covered by Herschel-ATLAS, thus providing new higher resolution data at millimetre wavelengths.
The student will take part in the scientific exploitation of the Herschel-ATLAS and MUSCAT data. He will develop a physical model to interpret the measured statistical properties of dust-obscured galaxies by solving the basic equations for the evolution of the gas within dark matter halos identified in N-body simulations and implementing realistic spectral energy distributions to convert the output of the equations into observables, eg flux densities. The student will also work on the final stages of the characterisation of MUSCAT before it is installed on the LMT. Once the camera is installed, he will assist in the commissioning of MUSCAT and readying the instrument for astronomical observations. He will then help with the data taking/analysis.