Outputs (5)

Hydrodynamical simulations of merging galaxy clusters: giant dark matter particle colliders, powered by gravity (2024)
Journal Article
Sirks, E. L., Harvey, D., Massey, R., Oman, K. A., Robertson, A., Frenk, C., Everett, S., Gill, A. S., Lagattuta, D., & McCleary, J. (2024). Hydrodynamical simulations of merging galaxy clusters: giant dark matter particle colliders, powered by gravity. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 530(3), 3160-3170. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stae1012

Terrestrial particle accelerators collide charged particles, then watch the trajectory of outgoing debris – but they cannot manipulate dark matter. Fortunately, dark matter is the main component of galaxy clusters, which are continuously pulled toget... Read More about Hydrodynamical simulations of merging galaxy clusters: giant dark matter particle colliders, powered by gravity.

Data Downloaded via Parachute from a NASA Super-Pressure Balloon (2023)
Journal Article
Sirks, E. L., Massey, R., Gill, A. S., Anderson, J., Benton, S. J., Brown, A. M., Clark, P., English, J., Everett, S. W., Fraisse, A. A., Franco, H., Hartley, J. W., Harvey, D., Holder, B., Hunter, A., Huff, E. M., Hynous, A., Jauzac, M., Jones, W. C., Joyce, N., …Vassilakis, G. N. (2023). Data Downloaded via Parachute from a NASA Super-Pressure Balloon. Aerospace, 10(11), Article 960. https://doi.org/10.3390/aerospace10110960

In April 2023, the superBIT telescope was lifted to the Earth’s stratosphere by a helium-filled super-pressure balloon to acquire astronomical imaging from above (99.5% of) the Earth’s atmosphere. It was launched from New Zealand and then, for 40 day... Read More about Data Downloaded via Parachute from a NASA Super-Pressure Balloon.

Lensing in the Blue. II. Estimating the Sensitivity of Stratospheric Balloons to Weak Gravitational Lensing (2023)
Journal Article
McCleary, J. E., Everett, S. W., Shaaban, M. M., Gill, A. S., Vassilakis, G. N., Huff, E. M., Massey, R. J., Benton, S. J., Brown, A. M., Clark, P., Holder, B., Fraisse, A. A., Jauzac, M., Jones, W. C., Lagattuta, D., Leung, J. S.-Y., Li, L., T. Luu, T. V., Nagy, J. M., Netterfield, C. B., …Tam, S. I. (2023). Lensing in the Blue. II. Estimating the Sensitivity of Stratospheric Balloons to Weak Gravitational Lensing. Astronomical Journal, 166(3), https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/ace7ca

The Superpressure Balloon-borne Imaging Telescope (SuperBIT) is a diffraction-limited, wide-field, 0.5 m, near-infrared to near-ultraviolet observatory designed to exploit the stratosphere's space-like conditions. SuperBIT's 2023 science flight will... Read More about Lensing in the Blue. II. Estimating the Sensitivity of Stratospheric Balloons to Weak Gravitational Lensing.

The effects of self-interacting dark matter on the stripping of galaxies that fall into clusters (2022)
Journal Article
Sirks, E. L., Oman, K. A., Robertson, A., Massey, R., & Frenk, C. (2022). The effects of self-interacting dark matter on the stripping of galaxies that fall into clusters. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 511(4), 5927-5935. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stac406

We use the Cluster-EAGLE (C-EAGLE) hydrodynamical simulations to investigate the effects of self-interacting dark matter (SIDM) on galaxies as they fall into clusters. We find that SIDM galaxies follow similar orbits to their cold dark matter (CDM) c... Read More about The effects of self-interacting dark matter on the stripping of galaxies that fall into clusters.

Download by parachute: retrieval of assets from high altitude balloons (2020)
Journal Article
Sirks, E., Clark, P., Massey, R., Benton, S., Brown, A., Damaren, C., Eifler, T., Fraisse, A., Frenk, C., Funk, M., Galloway, M., Gill, A., Hartley, J., Holder, B., Huff, E., Jauzac, M., Jones, W., Lagattuta, D., Leung, J.-Y., Li, L., …Tam, S.-I. (2020). Download by parachute: retrieval of assets from high altitude balloons. Journal of Instrumentation, 15(05), Article P05014. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-0221/15/05/p05014

We present a publicly-available toolkit of flight-proven hardware and software to retrieve 5 TB of data or small physical samples from a stratospheric balloon platform. Before launch, a capsule is attached to the balloon, and rises with it. Upon remo... Read More about Download by parachute: retrieval of assets from high altitude balloons.