Benjamin Gompertz
Assistant Professor, University of Birmingham
I am an Assistant Professor in the Institute of Gravitational Wave Astronomy at the University of Birmingham. I research explosive transients that arise from merging neutron stars and black holes.
When two neutron stars or a neutron star and a black hole merge, the extreme energy release launches ultra-relativistic jets and creates ripples in space-time. We can detect these even from vast distances as short gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and gravitational-waves! The intense pressure of the merger allows very heavy elements to form (events like these are likely the main production sites of gold and platinum in the universe). We detect the radioactive glow of these newly-formed heavy elements as a ‘kilonova’. I use the combined ‘multi-messenger’ information from short GRBs, kilonovae, and gravitational-waves to learn about our universe, including just how influential mergers are in producing gold, and how matter behaves in extreme gravity.
I received my PhD from the University of Leicester in 2015. The title of my PhD thesis was “The Progenitors of Extended Emission Gamma-Ray Bursts”. My supervisors were Professor Paul O’Brien and Professor Graham Wynn.
After receiving my PhD, I spent two years between June 2015 and August 2017 as a postdoctoral research associate at Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, USA, where I worked with Dr Andy Fruchter. I moved to The University of Warwick in September 2017 to work with Professor Andrew Levan. I joined the Institute of Gravitational Wave Astronomy in April 2021 to become part of Dr Matt Nicholl‘s time domain research group at Birmingham. I became an Assistant Professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy in September 2022. I am a member of a number of transient hunting collaborations and consortia. These include:
- The Gravitational-wave Optical Transient Observer (GOTO) team, where I coordinate the GRB science working group. GOTO is a wide-field search/survey telescope on La Palma, Spain (and soon Siding Spring, Australia) designed to rapidly respond to gravitational-wave alerts from the LIGO, Virgo and KAGRA collaboration and hunt for associated transients.
- The ENGRAVE collaboration, an international team of European astronomers dedicated to discovering electromagnetic counterparts to gravitational-wave detections.
- The STARGATE collaboration, dedicated to following up GRBs with ESO facilities.
- The Vera Rubin LSST consortium. Rubin is a next-generation wide field facility that is expected to achieve 90% completeness for kilonovae out to 200 Mpc. The telescope is due to come online in 2023.
- The THESEUS consortium. THESEUS is a European Space Agency M-class GRB mission concept being proposed for launch in 2037.
GOTO (K. Ulaczyk)
Benjamin Gompertz 