Acoustics of the Didjeridu. We shall undertake a comprehensive experimental and theoretical study of the acoustics of the didjeridu-lips-vocal tract system. There is very little published technical literature on the dynamic acoustics of this important and uniquely Australian instrument, whose operation is surprisingly complex. A combination of stroboscopic measurements of lip motion, acoustic and vocal tract impedance measurements, MRI imaging of the vocal tract and computer modeling will be use ....Acoustics of the Didjeridu. We shall undertake a comprehensive experimental and theoretical study of the acoustics of the didjeridu-lips-vocal tract system. There is very little published technical literature on the dynamic acoustics of this important and uniquely Australian instrument, whose operation is surprisingly complex. A combination of stroboscopic measurements of lip motion, acoustic and vocal tract impedance measurements, MRI imaging of the vocal tract and computer modeling will be used to synthesize all components of the acoustic system into one quantitative model. The expected outcome will be an understanding of this instrument of unparalleled detail.Read moreRead less
Acoustic single cell traps: Understanding the woods by examining the trees. This project aims to define the underlying physics behind the manipulation of individual cells in a microfluidic chip using acoustic forces. The technology investigated would offer biomedical researchers a unique capability: that of tracking individual cell responses. It is known for example that drug resistance and latency emerge from small sub-populations of cells, so crucial information is lost when cells are studied ....Acoustic single cell traps: Understanding the woods by examining the trees. This project aims to define the underlying physics behind the manipulation of individual cells in a microfluidic chip using acoustic forces. The technology investigated would offer biomedical researchers a unique capability: that of tracking individual cell responses. It is known for example that drug resistance and latency emerge from small sub-populations of cells, so crucial information is lost when cells are studied at a population level. To trap single cells, the acoustic wavelength excited must be reduced to the order of a cell diameter. By enabling the analysis of different responses due to subtle cell difference, information pertinent to infection pathways and drug response could be gathered.Read moreRead less
A Transdimensional Approach to Gravitational-Wave Astronomy. This project uses ripples in the fabric of spacetime––gravitational waves––to understand the cosmos and the fundamental nature of reality. We aim to discover new sources of gravitational waves from exploding stars. Using gravitational waves from colliding black holes, we aim to uncover new physics beyond Einstein's theory of general relativity. To achieve these goals we will develop tools from the cutting-edge of data science.
Gravitational wave astrophysics with Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). The prediction that space and time vibrate is one of Einstein's greatest legacies, implying the existence of a new form of radiation with which to study the Universe. This project puts Australia in the vanguard of the billion-dollar effort worldwide to detect and harness this radiation for the first time.
Precision cosmic expansion in the era of gravitational-wave astronomy. The disagreement in the size of the cosmic expansion rate, between measurements from local galaxy indicators and predictions from the early Universe, is a crisis for cosmology. This Project aims to resolve this situation using recent scientific breakthroughs in both observations and theory. We will optimise expansion measurements from the standard sirens discovered by gravitational-wave astronomy by accurate modelling of th ....Precision cosmic expansion in the era of gravitational-wave astronomy. The disagreement in the size of the cosmic expansion rate, between measurements from local galaxy indicators and predictions from the early Universe, is a crisis for cosmology. This Project aims to resolve this situation using recent scientific breakthroughs in both observations and theory. We will optimise expansion measurements from the standard sirens discovered by gravitational-wave astronomy by accurate modelling of the cosmic velocity field which limits this analysis. And we will use recent breakthoughs in numerical general relativity to explore the influence of space-time curvature variations on these measurements. We will hence improve our understanding of the most important parameter describing the Universe, and its physics.Read moreRead less
An upgraded pulsar timing array for gravitational wave detection. Millisecond pulsars are remarkably regularly-rotating neutron stars that offer the opportunity to detect gravitational waves via the technique known as pulsar timing. Australia has long been a world leader in the discovery and timing of millisecond pulsars, and the Parkes pulsar timing array is one of three major programmes in the world aimed at making the first direct detection of gravitational waves in any frequency band. This p ....An upgraded pulsar timing array for gravitational wave detection. Millisecond pulsars are remarkably regularly-rotating neutron stars that offer the opportunity to detect gravitational waves via the technique known as pulsar timing. Australia has long been a world leader in the discovery and timing of millisecond pulsars, and the Parkes pulsar timing array is one of three major programmes in the world aimed at making the first direct detection of gravitational waves in any frequency band. This project is designed to capitalise on Australia's position of strength in this field by extending the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array dataset (PPTA) so that it has the best chance of detecting gravitational waves in the nanohertz regime until the SKA pathfinders start to come online in 2017.Read moreRead less
Weighing the Universe using fast radio bursts. Fast radio bursts are a newly-discovered astronomical phenomenon whose millisecond-timescale emission occurs at cosmological distances, rendering them exceptional probes of the matter that lies in intergalactic space. This project aims to measure the positions and obtain the distances to these bursts to make a direct measurement of the density of ordinary matter in the Universe, at least 50 per cent of which is believed to remain undetected in inter ....Weighing the Universe using fast radio bursts. Fast radio bursts are a newly-discovered astronomical phenomenon whose millisecond-timescale emission occurs at cosmological distances, rendering them exceptional probes of the matter that lies in intergalactic space. This project aims to measure the positions and obtain the distances to these bursts to make a direct measurement of the density of ordinary matter in the Universe, at least 50 per cent of which is believed to remain undetected in intergalactic space. This project will measure the distribution of this missing matter, and find how it has evolved throughout the history of the Universe. This will provide significant benefits, such as addressing two fundamental questions about our Universe: how much matter does it contain, and has a large fraction of it hitherto evaded detection in intergalactic space?Read moreRead less
Effective Microfluidic Cell Sorting using Synergistic Acoustic and Optical manipulation. The fluorescence-activated cell sorting technique alone represented a US$860 million market in worldwide diagnostic and life science research devices for 2004. The development of a faster and cheaper device with similar efficacy, as per the objective of this work, has the potential of supplanting immunological methods of cell sorting and thus yield substantial economic returns to the nation. The research act ....Effective Microfluidic Cell Sorting using Synergistic Acoustic and Optical manipulation. The fluorescence-activated cell sorting technique alone represented a US$860 million market in worldwide diagnostic and life science research devices for 2004. The development of a faster and cheaper device with similar efficacy, as per the objective of this work, has the potential of supplanting immunological methods of cell sorting and thus yield substantial economic returns to the nation. The research activities in this project will strengthen Australia's research standing in the fields of microfluidics and lab-in-a-chip technologies. On a broader platform, it will contribute to Australia's high standing in the field of biotechnology.Read moreRead less
Smart searches for continuous gravitational waves with advanced LIGO. This project aims to detect continuous gravitational waves from neutron stars, by using smart signal processing methods developed for engineering applications like mobile telephony. The first direct detection of Einstein's gravitational waves from two merging black holes by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory in 2015 began a new era of human discovery. This project is expected to progress gravitational wave ....Smart searches for continuous gravitational waves with advanced LIGO. This project aims to detect continuous gravitational waves from neutron stars, by using smart signal processing methods developed for engineering applications like mobile telephony. The first direct detection of Einstein's gravitational waves from two merging black holes by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory in 2015 began a new era of human discovery. This project is expected to progress gravitational wave science and Australia's role in it, and generate insights about the origin of neutron stars and the physics of bulk nuclear matter under extremes of gravity, density and magnetisation which cannot be replicated on Earth.Read moreRead less
Putting Einstein to the test: Probing gravity with gravitational waves. This project aims to capitalise on the momentous discovery of gravitational waves by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO). In 2016, the LIGO Scientific Collaboration announced the first detection of gravitational waves coming from the collision of two massive black holes approximately one billion light years from Earth. The project aims to use proprietary LIGO data, of multiple gravitational-wave ob ....Putting Einstein to the test: Probing gravity with gravitational waves. This project aims to capitalise on the momentous discovery of gravitational waves by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO). In 2016, the LIGO Scientific Collaboration announced the first detection of gravitational waves coming from the collision of two massive black holes approximately one billion light years from Earth. The project aims to use proprietary LIGO data, of multiple gravitational-wave observations, to perform unprecedented tests of Einstein's theory of gravity in regions of the Universe where new physics is most likely to occur - at the surfaces of black holes. The project is designed to develop the foundation of gravitational-wave astronomy for the next three-to-five years.Read moreRead less