Congratulations to the following members of Physics staff on their promotions:

• David Brown (Senior Research Fellow)
• Aruni Fonseka (Senior Research Fellow)
• Paul Strom (Senior Research Fellow)
• David Armstrong (Associate Professor)
• Anne-Marie Broomhall (Associate Professor)
• Andrew Howes (Associate Professor)
• Elizabeth Stanway (Reader)

All promotions are with effect from 1 August 2021.

Dr Joseph Lyman of the Astronomy and Astrophysics group is one of four Warwick academics to receive a highly-prestigious UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship in the third round of awards.

Joe's project, titled "New frontiers in transient astrophysics: gravitational-wave multi-messenger events and exotic stellar explosions", is devoted to furthering our understanding of the changing night sky. Astrophysical transients, in the form of exploding stars as supernovae, and merging neutron stars as gravitational-wave events, are some of the most energetic events in the Universe and probe physics under conditions far beyond our capabilities on Earth.

As we don't know where or when these events will occur, the fellowship will develop and exploit the Warwick-led Gravitational wave Optical Transient Observer (GOTO) project as a discovery machine to find new and exotic transients. It will also create of a rapid network of telescope facilities to follow these GOTO discoveries, making it possible to take detailed observations almost immediately after discovery, and allowing us to open new windows in study of these extreme explosions.

Joe joins Dr Heather Cegla and Dr Benjamin Richards as Future Leaders Fellows in the Department of Physics. See https://warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pressreleases/ukri_fellowships_awarded_to_four_university_of_warwick_academics1 for a Warwick press release.

Staff and students from the Physics department will again contribute to Coventry's "Pint of Science" festival this year, to be held from 20-22 May in venues around the city. Departmental representatives include Jessica Marshall, Matthew Hoskin, Sam Seddon, Tishtrya Mehta, and Alun Rees.

17, 19 & 21 April

Experience a show in the Physics inflatable planetarium and hear from the Warwick astronomers who use it to deliver outreach.

Free; booking is essential.

Congratulations are offered to:

• Anne-Marie Broomhall and Dmitri Veras on their promotions to Senior Research Fellow
• Richard West on his promotion to Principal Research Fellow
• Rachel Edwards, Yorck Ramachers and Neil Wilson on their promotions to Reader

• University of Warwick researchers identify a white dwarf pulsar – a star type which has eluded astronomers for half a century
• Star lashes its neighbour with intense radiation beam every two minutes
• Research published in Nature Astronomy

Twenty-six members of staff from the Physics Department joined colleagues from across the Faculty of Science in signing a submission to a House of Commons Education Committee Inquiry into the impact of exiting the European Union on Higher Education. As well as discussing the effect on undergraduate and postgraduate students, a particular focus was on the effect on staff who are non-UK EU nationals (this corresponds to over 20% of Warwick academic staff), notably the continued lack of assurance from government of their status and that of their families. The submission also emphasised the great benefit of freedom of movement of European researchers for ensuring the UK is at the forefront of scientific research, as well as damage that would be done if UK scientists lose access to prestiguous European funding, notably European Research Council grants where the department has been very successful recently.

In June 2015, a black hole called V404 Cygni underwent dramatic brightening for about two weeks. An international team of astronomers, including the University of Warwick, report that the black hole emitted dazzling red flashes lasting just fractions of a second, as it blasted out material that it could not swallow...

Dr. Pier-Emmanuel Tremblay, Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics, has been awarded a 1.5 million Euro Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC). The research project entitled "Evolution of white dwarfs with 3D model atmospheres" will soon recruit...

The most Earth-like planet could have been made uninhabitable by vast quantities of radiation, new research led by Dr Dave Armstrong of the Astronomy Group has found. The atmosphere of the planet, Kepler-438b, is thought to have been...