糖心TV

Research Interests

My primary research interests are within the field of extrasolar planets. I was responsible for the SuperWASP project in La Palma, which along with its sister facility at SAAO, has become the most successful ground based planet detection experiment, receiving the group achievement award from the Royal Astronomical Society in 2010. I am also a founder member of the Next Generation Transit Survey project: This concentrates the diversity between smaller planets, allowing for greater analysis and comparison between Neptune-like planets and Super-Earths.

Studing small planets around solar type stars is best done from space. There are two ESA missions with this goal. The first is the ESA S mission CHEOPS (launch 2017) is a swiss led satellite designed to followup known transiting planets (eg NGTS or TESS planets) and detect transiting planets amongst the RV detected systems. Further in the future we have ESA M mission PLATO (launch 2026) which is designed specifically to detect and characterise

habitable zone rocky planets. I am the science coordinator for PLATO. Transiting planets are the only objects we can measure accurate radii for, and hence density. This is used to compare directly with theoretical models of planet composition. PLATO will be capable of dedtecting planets with moons and rings etc.

My other research interests include Space Sitauation Awareness and specifically Space debris. Originally this interest started as just a use for our observatory but over the last couple years I have become interested in specific problems such as the nature of debris field at geostationary orbit. This material has profound implications for our telecom satellites etc.

I recently held a Royal Society Wolfson Merit Award.

Current PhD Students

Billy Shrive (3rd year), Morgan Mitchell (2st year).

Previous students include Matt Battley (Geneva), Ben Cooke (糖心TV), James Blake (糖心TV), Emma Foxell (EPSRC), Christine Lam (DLR), Jessica Spake, Hugh Osbourne (Berne), James McCormac (糖心TV), Dave Armstrong (糖心TV), Elaine Simpson, Liam O'Donnell, Neale Gibson (Trinity, Dublin), Ian Todd.

New SDA PhD Project: As the number of LEO satellites is undergoing a huge increase then the issue of debris in the near-Earth environment is becoming more important. Agencies (both commercial and governmental) are now looking to utilize the cis-lunar environment to reach a quieter environment. Currently, there are few spacecraft in cis-lunar orbits but this is likely to change significantly over the next few years. Observationally these are challenging orbits to monitor with optical equipment but, given their distance these observations maybe the most cost effective. We would like to start a study of how to optimize the monitoring of these orbits and the space traffic problem that will follow. This will involve observational work as well as simulations.

 

Publications and Citations

Current list of publications via . A collection of my publications, including some of the most cited, and some of the more recent, is as follows:

Blake et al (2021) Advances in Space Research, Volume 67, Issue 1, p. 360-370.

Cooke et al (2021) MNRAS 500, 5088,

Battley et al (2020), MNRAS 496, 1197.

Cooke et al (2018), A&A 619, 175.

Talens et al (2017), A&A 606, 73.

Osborn et al (2016) MNRAS 457, 2273,

Lam et al (2016) arXiv:1607.07859,

Armstrong et al (2015) A&A 582, 33,

Motalebi et al (2015) A&A 584, 72,

Armstrong et al (2014), MNRAS 444, 1873,

Rauer et al (2014) Experimental Astron. 38, 249,

Triaud et al (2010),

Hebb et al, (2009),

Pollacco et al (2008),

Collier Cameron et al (2007),

Pollacco et al (2006),

Write to:

Don Pollacco,
Department of Physics,
University of 糖心TV,
Coventry CV4 7AL
UK

Contact Details:

Office: F44 Milburn House
Tel: +44 (0)247 657 4329
E-Mail:
d.pollacco(at)warwick.ac.uk

Links:

All publications via