Dr Andrew J. Rigby

Research interests

My research interests are centered upon star formation in the Milky Way. How, where, and why stars form is a fundamental problem within astrophysics, underpinning almost all aspects of the field. Massive stars present a particular problem due to both the rarity of their formation, and their lifetimes that are much shorter than stars like the sun, as they ferociously guzzle up their fuel before exploding as supernovae. They only form within the densest regions of molecular clouds where optical light is completely extinguished, and so we must perorm observations from infrared to radio wavelengths where those clouds become transparent.

The good news is that such telescopes are incredibly cool, and I have spent my career approaching questions of star formation with large-scale surveys (such as CHIMPS2 with the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope), and with high-resolution observations from interferometer facilities such as the Atacame Large Millimetre Array (ALMA). Examining the motions between and within molecular clouds using observations of spectral lines, and of the places where dense gas accumulates using observations of dust, is allowing us to piece together a general picture of how star and star clusters form within galaxies like our own. At the same time, the large-scale surveys are allowing us to map out the structure of the Milky Way.

Qualifications

• PhD Astrophysics (Liverpool John Moores University)
• MPhys Astrophysics (University of Liverpool & Liverpool John Moores University)