Chris Lidman

Future Fellow
Australian Astronomical Observatory
e-mail: clidman"at"aao.gov.au

A photo of me in the control room on Pranal

Selected Publications

Short term projects (coming soon)

Phd Projects

Lectures on Adaptive Optics

Research Interests

My research interests centre on the high redshift universe and cosmology. In particular, I use distant galaxy clusters, gravitational lenses and Type Ia supernovae as cosmological probes. I am a member of the following collaborations:

Recent results in Type Ia Supernova Cosmology

At the recent AAS meeting in Washington, the Supernova Cosmology Project presented new results on the properties of Dark Energy, the mysterious fluid that causes the expansion of the Universe to accelerate. To learn more, click on the postage stamps.
The Union2 Supernova Sample The HST Cluster SN Survey
The paper describing the Union2 sample and the data used in the analysis are now available.

An unusually massive galaxy cluster in the early Universe

Our understanding of how structure in the Universe evolves indicates that massive galaxy clusters are the last structures to form. It is then somewhat surprising to discover that galaxy clusters like the one shown below exist when the Universe was only a few billion years old - the Universe is currently 13.6 billion years old. To learn more about this extra-ordinary cluster, click on the image.

Instrumentation

My instrumentation interests lie in the fields of adaptive optics, infrared imaging and mutli-object spectroscopy. I have been the instrument scientist for NACO, ISAAC, SOFI and IRAC2b.