Yr Athro Patrick Sutton
Research Group Leader, Gravitational Physics Research Group
- Email:
- suttonpj1@cardiff.ac.uk
- Telephone:
- +44 (0)29 2087 4043
- Location:
- N/1.09, Adeiladau'r Frenhines - Adeilad y Gogledd, 5 The Parade, Heol Casnewydd, Caerdydd, CF24 3AA
- Ar gael fel goruchwyliwr ôl-raddedig
My research focuses on the detection and study of gravitational waves -- ripples in the fabric of spacetime. These are produced by some of the most violent events in the Universe, such as the collisions of black holes, the explosive deaths of massive stars, and perhaps the Big Bang itself. The detection of gravitational waves by the LIGO observatories has opened a new window on nature, and is allowing us to probe the behaviour of matter and test Einstein's theory of gravity under extreme conditions that cannot (and should not!) be replicated on Earth. My particular specialties are the detection and interpretation of weak signals in noisy data. I am a member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, and have served on various national and international advisory committees on gravitational waves and astroparticle physics.
I undertook my graduate studies at the University of Alberta, studying the renormalisation of quantum field theories in curved spacetimes, and graduated in 2000. I then spent two and a half years as a postdoctoral fellow in the gravitational physics group at Penn State University, followed by a four-year stint as a senior postdoctoral fellow and then a senior research fellow at the California Institute of Technology. I joined the faculty of Cardiff University as a senior lecturer in June 2007, and was promoted to Reader in 2012 and then Personal Chair in 2016.
Anrhydeddau a Dyfarniadau
Head, Gravitational Physics Group, Cardiff University
Chair, STFC Particle Astrophysics Advisory Panel (to 2016)
Member, Astroparticle Physics European Consortium (ApPEC) - Scientific Advisory Commitee
2019
- Abbott, B.et al. 2019. All-sky search for short gravitational-wave bursts in the second Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo run. Physical Review D 100(2), article number: 24017. (10.1103/PhysRevD.100.024017)
- Booth, C.et al. 2019. All-sky search for continuous gravitational waves from isolated neutron stars using Advanced LIGO O2 data. Physical Review D 100(2), article number: 24004. (10.1103/PhysRevD.100.024004)
- Abbott, B.et al. 2019. Tests of general relativity with GW170817. Physical Review Letters 123, article number: 11102. (10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.011102)
- Abbott, B.et al. 2019. Narrow-band search for gravitational waves from known pulsars using the second LIGO observing run. Physical Review D 99(12), article number: 122002. (10.1103/PhysRevD.99.122002)
- Abbott, B.et al. 2019. All-sky search for long-duration gravitational-wave transients in the second Advanced LIGO observing run. Physical Review D 99(10), article number: 104033. (10.1103/PhysRevD.99.104033)
- Soares-Santos, M.et al. 2019. First measurement of the Hubble constant from a dark standard siren using the Dark Energy Survey Galaxies and the LIGO/Virgo binary-black-hole merger GW170814. Astrophysical Journal Letters 876(1), pp. L7. (10.3847/2041-8213/ab14f1)
- Abbott, B. P.et al. 2019. Searches for Continuous Gravitational Waves from 15 Supernova Remnants and Fomalhaut b with Advanced LIGO. Astrophysical Journal 875(2), article number: 122. (10.3847/1538-4357/ab113b)
- Abbott, B. P.et al. 2019. Low-latency gravitational-wave alerts for multimessenger astronomy during the second advanced LIGO and virgo observing run. The Astrophysical Journal 875(2), article number: 161. (10.3847/1538-4357/ab0e8f)
- Abbott, B. P.et al. 2019. Search for transient gravitational-wave signals associated with magnetar bursts during advanced LIGO's second observing run. Astrophysical Journal 874(2), article number: 163. (10.3847/1538-4357/ab0e15)
- Albert, A.et al. 2019. Search for multimessenger sources of gravitational waves and high-energy neutrinos with advanced LIGO during its first observing run, ANTARES, and IceCube. Astrophysical Journal 870(2), article number: 134. (10.3847/1538-4357/aaf21d)
- Abbott, B.et al. 2019. Properties of the binary neutron star merger GW170817. Physical Review X 9(1), article number: 11001. (10.1103/PhysRevX.9.011001)
2018
- Abbott, B.et al. 2018. Search for subsolar-mass ultracompact binaries in advanced LIGO's first observing Run. Physical Review Letters 121(23), article number: 231103. (10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.231103)
- Abbott, B.et al. 2018. GW170817: Measurements of neutron star radii and equation of state. Physical Review Letters 121(16), article number: 161101. (10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.161101)
2017
- Abbott, B.et al. 2017. GW170104: Observation of a 50-Solar-Mass Binary Black Hole Coalescence at Redshift 0.2. Physical Review Letters 118(22), article number: 221101. (10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.221101)
2016
- Abbott, B. P.et al. 2016. GW150914: The advanced LIGO detectors in the era of first discoveries. Physical Review Letters 116(13), article number: 131103. (10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.131103)
2015
- Aasi, J.et al. 2015. Advanced LIGO. Classical and Quantum Gravity 32(7), article number: 74001. (10.1088/0264-9381/32/7/074001)
On Research Leave for 2016-17. Previous teaching duties include:
PX3241 - Particle Physics and Special Relativity (2013-16)
PX4124 - Introduction to General Relativity (2014-15)
PX3237 - Nuclear and Particle Physics (2012-13)
PX4115 - General Relativity and Relativistic Astrophysics (2007-13)
I have also served as the Teaching Quality Officer for PHYSX since 2013.
Research interests
Violent relativistic events such as the collisions of black holes or neutron stars, supernovae, and gamma-ray bursts, can produce powerful bursts of gravitational waves. A common feature of these systems is that they are difficult to model, involving complex physics of matter at nuclear densities and nonlinear general relativistic effects. Gravitational waves could provide a probe of the rich physics of these systems. As a member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, I am developing strategies to detect gravitational-wave bursts, and creating techniques for locating the sources on the sky, extracting their waveforms from noisy data, and fitting them to simulations and theoretical models. In particular, I focus on the detection of gravitational waves associated with gamma-ray bursts and supernovae using data from the LIGO, GEO, and Virgo detectors.
Supervision
Current PhD students: Maxime Fays, Iain Dorrington, Ronaldas Macas, Scott Coughlin, Vassilis Skliris.
I am interested in supervising PhD students in the areas of:
- gravitational waves
- signal detection techniques
Goruchwyliaeth gyfredol
Scott Coughlin
Research student
Prosiectau ymchwil ôl-raddedig
- Supervisor for Laura Nuttall - Electromagnetic Follow-Up of Gravitational Wave Candidates (PhD, 2013).
- Supervisor for Mark Edwards - On the search for intermediate duration gravitational waves using the spherical harmonic basis (PhD, 2014)
- Supervisor for Thomas Adams - Detector Characterisation and Searches for Gravitational Waves Using GEO 600 (PhD, 2014)
- Supervisor for Scott Coughlin - Gravitational waves searches associated with galactic core-collapse supernova (MPhil, 2015)