NordForsk

Application for a Nordic network of national Centres of Excellence (Abridged!)

Beslutning:

Mottagit:

Ref.nr.:

1 Last name

First name

Sex

Title/position

Sollerman

Jesper

Docent/Lektor

University

Academic degree

Copenhagen University

PhD/Docent

Department/institution

Telephone (work)

Mobile

DARK, Niels Bohr Institute

+45 35325899

Department/institution address

Telefax (work)

Juliane Maries Vej 30

Postal code

City

Country

E-mail

2100

Copenhagen

Denmark

jesper@astro.su.se

2 Title of the project/activity (max 50 characters)

Nordic Network of Astrophysics and Cosmology (NNAC)

3 Time span for the first year of the network (dd.mm.yyyy):

4 Subject area (See last page)

From: 01.01.2008

To: 31.12.2010

Physics

5 Estimated number of participants

DK

FI

IS

NO

SE

EE

LT

LV

RU

Other inside the EU*

Other outside the EU*

Total

Men

Women

Research students

12

1

5

12

30

15

15

Senior researchers

10

1

5

14

30

25

5

Research groups

Other participants

* Other countries

6 Summary. Give a short description of the network’s targets and aims (max 200 words). NordForsk reserves the right to use parts of the text or the text in full for information purposes. The proposed Nordic Network of Astrophysics and Cosmology (NNAC) will try to answer one of the deepest questions in science; What is the Universe made of? In modern Cosmology this boils down to trying to understand Dark Matter and Dark Energy. Answers to such questions are currently the main goal for several high-profile research groups within the Nordic countries. The major aim of this network is to utilize the creative and highly productive centres of excellence created in Sweden (HEAC was one of the first true CoE from VR), Denmark (Dark Cosmology Centre funded by the GF is the most expansive research group in this area in Northern Europe right now) and in Norway (Where the CMA also host astronomers interested in the same cosmological questions as are pursued at HEAC and DARK). In this proposal we focus on a subgroup of young active and very energetic astrophysisists within these networks. All members of the core applicant group are under age 40, and also include several PhD students. We beleive that this will increase the level of active exchange between the centra, and it will ensure that the collaborations and activities are longlasting. The science includes some of the hottest topics in physics today. What is the universe made of? How did it all begin and what is the fate of the universe? While these are indeed big questions, they can today be posed within the realms of observational and theoretical cosmology. This rising field of science has a strong future, and the emerging activities in the nordic countries in this field will clearly benefit from collaboration, interaction, coordination and inspiration. Within this network we will be able to share students at all levels, invite guest lectureres for common PhD-courses, interact through targeted meetings and workshops and collaborate via extensive and active visiting programmes. This will be strongly supported by the visitor programmes already operating in the respective national centra, and will be coordinated with the national research schools of HEAC and DARS.

7 Amount requested from NordForsk

900 000,00 NOK

8 Co-ordination group (title, name, university, email) The network should appoint a coordinator and a coordinating group responsible for the activities of the network. NordForsk encourages the organisers to include network partners from more than three Nordic countries. NordForsk gives priority to applications that include more Nordic countries, the adjacent areas (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Northwestern Russia). Several institutions or research groups from each country may be included. A short presentation of the participants in the co-ordination group must be enclosed (see appendix 15)
Title	Name	University or equivalent	E-mail
PhD	Johan Fynbo	DARK, Copenhagen University (KU)	jfynbo@astro.ku.dk
Title	Name	University or equivalent	E-mail
PhD	Edvard Mörtsell	Stockholm University (SU)	edvard@astro.su.se
Title	Name	University or equivalent	E-mail
PhD	Göran Östlin	Stockholm University	ostlin@astro.su.se
Title	Name	University or equivalent	E-mail
PhD	Haakon Dahle	Oslo University	hakon.dahle@astro.uio.no
Title	Name	University or equivalent	E-mail
Msc	Michael Blomqvist	SU	michaelb@astro.su.se
Title	Name	University or equivalent	E-mail
Msc	Genoveva Micheva	SU	genoveva@astro.su.se
Title	Name	University or equivalent	E-mail
Msc	Kim Nilsson	DARK, KU	kim@astro.ku.dk
Title	Name	University or equivalent	E-mail
Msc	Ardis Eliasdottir	DARK, KU	ardis@dark-cosmology.dk
Title	Name	University or equivalent	E-mail
Msc	Teresa Riehm	Stockholm University	teresa@astro.su.se

11 A detailed budget for the first year of the network, including specific information on the various items in the budget.

(Please note that a maximum of 10 per cent may be used for administrative costs.)

The budget of the network basically includes travel costs for visitor progammes and for students. We also envision having regular meetings with subgroups of the participating centra. Part of the budget will be spent on sharing external visitors between the centra, to maximize the interaction with oversea researchers. All members of the included research centra will be invited to apply for support, and the NNAC board (box 8) will be deciding on how to best use the funding in accordance with the targets of this proposal.

For example having one bachelor/master student and a PhD student or senior researcher visiting two of the nodes for 3 months per year, require funding for travel and expenses of about 300 kNOK.

92 days per year x 2 persons x 2 centra x 800 NOK/day = 294400 NOK

A small meeting at one of the nodes every year would cost:

20 participants x 3 days x 800 NOK/days = 48000 NOK, excluding extensive travel costs.

We are aware that the requested funding is not a major add-on to the already existing travel budgets for some of these centra. However, this varies somewhat between the centra, so while DARK do have a sizeable travel and visitor budget, e.g., HEAC spend most of their funding on the research school and thus on the PhD-student salaries.

The real potential of this programme is, however, that it can and will complement the funding already available within the existing centre structures – and do so to explicitly favor Nordic initiatives.

The proposed NNAC will not work in isolation, but will allow and encourage Nordic action items within the individual centre programmes. For example, the NNAC could co-finance NORDIC teachers to the Danish DARS PhD-schools, thus strongly enforcing the interaction between the centres. The NNAC could further allow Norweigan and Swedish PhD-students to participate in the aforementioned DARS courses. Likewise, of course, Danish DARS students could benefit from courses, seminars and workshops organized by e.g., HEAC in Stockholm - and NNAC would then provide the additional funding to allow such participation.

We are thus convinced that a dedicated funding channel to enable the focussed Nordic collaborations will very efficiently add to the existing structures already set up and funded on the national levels.

On the research side, most of the interaction will take place via researchers meeting in person in the Nordic capitals. To encourage the younger generation of researchers to meet is the prime aim of this programme.

The board of NNAC will meet at least annualy to supervise the activities. We envision a first meeting in Olso in early 2008.

We emphasize again that this is not just a give-us-even-more-money proposal. The participating centra do indeed have sizeable budgets for visitor programmes, travel and reserach training. But this proposal aims to focus these efforts on strengthening the NORDIC collaborations. With this dedicated funding there will always be a strong incitement to suggest nordic collaboration. Furthermore, to make a particular budget available for the younger researchers provides the freedom for them to create new, intersting and longlasting networks

12. A six page (maximum) description of the network, including the following compulsory items:

a) The current status of research and research training in the subject area in the Nordic countries

b) An exposition of the prospects and need for Nordic cooperation and how the network is expected to contribute to strengthening the Nordic countries internationally in the subject area

c) A motivation for the choice of participating groups, including a description of the national centres of excellence from at least three Nordic countries. It is the responsibility of the applicant to describe in what way the Nordic research groups are national centres of excellence or correspondingly prominent research groups e.g., by describing the national programmes/organisations that supports each research group of the network. The importance of including other research groups that may not have the corresponding status of national centres of excellence shall also be motivated

d) Targets to be achieved during the operating period of the network

e) A detailed plan for collaborative activities within the first year and a preliminary plan for the coming two years

f) Visions for continued co-operation after the grant period

g) What considerations are made to increase equal participation and equality of women and men?

h) Comments concerning the estimated number of researchers, including research students and young researchers from each country and plans for increasing the number of participants during the network’s funding period

• The current status of research and research training in the subject area in the Nordic regions.

It is quite remarkable that both Denmark and Sweden have simultaneously created CoE within the same field – Cosmology. This topic did almost not exist in the Nordic countries 10 years ago. It has emerged as new and paradigmshifting observations have metamorphosed the quest for understanding the composition and origin of the Universe from philosophy to quantitative and observable physics. HEAC in Stockholm and DARK in Copenhagen are CoE devoted to this topic. CMA in Oslo also host astronomers working in this field, as do the Science Institute in Reykjavik.

As becomes apparent in this proposal, this shift has (and will have) large consequences for Nordic astronomy - since Nordic astronomers have successfully participated in this very exiting development. A large number of the young and most recently employed astronomers in the Nordic countries do work on this topic. Therefore, this is a good time to organize collaborations and interactions between the centra of this proposal. This is also why the research training in these countries is rapidly improving, as a consequence of dedictaed research training programmes organized in the waves of these new activities.

In Denmark, the Dark Cosmology Centre in Copenhagen and the astroparticle group around S. Hannestad in Aarhus tend to dominate astronomy at the national level. As an example, this period the astronomers at the DARK centre obtained more than 50% of the observing time at the Nordic Optical Telescope. That the DARK centre is also compatitive on an international level can be seen from the large amounts of awarded telescope time at e.g., the European Southern Observatory as well as by the large number of publications for example in Nature by this group. Likewise, the HEAC centre has a large and strong group of internationally recognized researchers. In Oslo, cosmology is one of three focus areas for the astronomy department, and is included in the CMA CoE. The centra will be further described below.

Thus, the research training has improved significantly with the advent of these centra. The HEAC centre is basically a research school with a coherent course programme with components from Stockholm university Astronommy department, the Physics department as well as the physics department on the Royal Institute of Technology.

In Denmark, the DARK centre and other astronomers have just formed a national research training school in astronomy – DARS. This new school will create a new research training programme including new courses suitable for PhD students within the relevant fields. Several of the DARS students are targeted for this network proposal. Let me just mention, that DARS will offer a telescope course on La Palma – something that has previously been missing (co-organizer J. Fynbo). At the same time, Stockholm university offers a La Palma course at the undergraduate level (co-organizer J. Sollerman). Support for a NNAC would clearly allow students from the other nodes to participate in such events. Thus, the research and research training is of high quality in the different countries, but we believe that additional value would come from improved coordination and mobility between these national efforts.

• An exposition of the prospects and need for Nordic Cooperation and how the network is expected to contribute the Nordic countries internationally in the subject area.

Cosmology is an international topic, and the success of the Nordic astronomers in this field comes from participation in large international collaborations. The DARK centre have, for example, 50% of the staff from foreign countries.

As large international collaborations are becoming increasingly important also in astronomy (it happened a long time ago in particle physics) – the need to be able to supply significant manpower is important for a successfull research centre. It is in this respect that Nordic collaboration can help the national centra to reach the critical mass needed to conduct frontline science on the international scene.

While we are confident that the scientists at the national centra of excellence will continue to be successfull in their research, we do beleive that a Nordic initiative on this scale will be extremely useful, in particular for the younger members of the centra.

We note that active collaboration do in fact exist among some members of the different centra already. An example is the very successfull work on Gamma-Ray Bursts that is at the foundation of the current DARK centre, but that started with active collaborators from Denmark (Hjorth, Fynbo), Norway (Jaunsen), Iceland (Björnsson, Jakobsson) and Sweden (Sollerman). It is in the spirit of such programmes that we know that a Nordic effort can be internationally compatitive.

• A motivation for the choice of participating groups, including a description of the centres of excellence from at least three Nordic countries.

The selected groups represent the best available researchers within this topic in the Nordic countries. It is indeed quite remarkable that CoE have been established at the same time in this same field over the 3 nordic countries. This initiative is unprecedented in Nordic astronomy and astrophysics and while the initial set-up of the centra have been uncoordinated national efforts, it is clear that the situation will benefit from Nordic coordination and collaboration.

HEAC – High energy astrophysics and cosmology centre

The HEAC centre is a joint effort between groups at the Astronomy Department, the Physics Department at Stockholm University, and the Physics Department at the Royal Institute of Technology. The aim of this Stockholm centre is to promote research in the areas of high energy astrophysics, cosmology and particle physics. HEAC has started a joint graduate school in high energy astrophysics and cosmology.

The HEAC centre is funded by a prestigeous grant from the Swedish Research Council for strong research environments. It was one of the first 10 centra selected as a strong research environment – thus one of the pioneering centra of excellence in Sweden.

Much more information is available on the constantly updated webpage http://heac.albanova.se

DARK – Dark Cosmology Centre

The Dark Cosmology Centre (DARK for short) is one of 12 centres of excellence established by the Danish National Research Foundation in 2005. The centre formally opened September 1st, 2005 in its new premises at the Rockefeller Complex, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen. DARK is funded for a duration of five years.

DARK aims at an astrophysical insight into the nature of the mysterious dark energy and dark matter. The nature of dark matter and energy is yet unkown. The existence of dark matter is inferred through its gravitational effects on ordinary, visible matter. The existence of dark energy is inferred from its effect on the expansion of the Universe.

The DARK team currently consists of 11 astrophysicists, a secretary, a computer manager, PhD and MSc students. The team members bring in key expertises and interact closely on a daily basis.

Activities at DARK focus on research, but other activities are also essential: research training, teaching, and conveying the results and methods of studying the dark Universe to the public.

For further information, please see the extensive www-page

http://www.astro.ku.dk/dark

CMA – centre of Mathematics for applications

This CoE is funded by the Norwegian Research Council. Its purpose is to establish timelimited research centres devoted to concentrated and focused research at a high international level. The scheme also aims to further strengthen the quality of Norwegian research.

CMA was one of 13 centra initiated in 2001. It was evaluated in 2006 and got a five year extension. CMA is a centre with a very broad scope, doing mathematics, physics, astrophysics and informatics.

See the homepage at

http://www.cma.uio.no

This proposal involves a selected subgroup of CMA astrophysisists that have interests that directly overlap and complement the research conducted at HEAC and at DARK. In particular, the group working on observational and theoretical cosmology, see e.g.,

http://www.cma.uio.no/projects/collaborative/planck.html

In order to exploit the Nordic competence, we have also involved the astrophysics researchers on Iceland. This is admittedly a small community (2 permanent positions, one new PhD student), but their research profiles match very well the theme of this network. Gulli Björnsson has also been formally recognised as excellent researcher by the Icelandic science funding agencies. It is therefore natural to include them in this Nordic Network.

• Targets to be achieved during the operation period of the centre.

- What we hope to achive with the network is to take advantage of the simultaneous boost in several Nordic countries in the fields of cosmology.

How? HEAC, DARK and CMA have released much more money than astrophysisists are used to spend. All centra simultaneously set up research schools and similar research programmes. Coordination and streamlining is clearly needed.

- We further want to create collaborations and networks among the Nordic reserachers, and the proposal is specifically targeting the younger generation in this field.

We have focused this proposal on the young (The PI and all the members of the board in Box 8 are less than 40 years old) and very active researchers in this field. There are already ongoing collaborations between many of these researchers, but we are confident that a dedicated initiative at this moment will be a very valuable investment.

- Focus the resources to the areas were true excellence can be guaranteed.

In several areas, researchers on this proposal are already worldleading. The DARK centre has published several groundbreaking articles the last few years, including 6 Nature articles. With many new research students now entering astronomy we feel it is important to be able to guide these towards the truly frontline subjects. We will make sure the research conducted in these fields will be more visible worldwide.

- Collaborate on topics where the needed expertize is distributed in the different centra.

There is a strong aspect of complementarity from the different nodes. To take a specific example, Steen Hannestad in Aarhus and Edvard Mörtsell in Stockholm have been working on contraining models for the Dark Energy using for example data from supernova and from the CMB. At the same time Tamara Davis in Copenhagen have been working on these supernova data, and the astrophysics group in Oslo are experts on the CMB. A joint and coordinated effort is clearly wortwhile.

• A detailed plan for collaborative activities within the first year and a preliminary plan for the coming 2 years.

We will start with a board meeting in Olso in early 2008 to define the details of the project. An important first step is to increase the mobility of young researchers, by having them spend significant amount of time at the different centra.

We envision a large meeting year 2, including a large fraction of the centre members - but will put most efforts on smaller mini-workshops on the themes of Supernova cosmology, Gamma-Ray bursts, Gravitational lensing, CMB cosmology, etc. The initiatives will be taken by the node leaders, with a substantial involvement by PhD-students.

Furthermore, we want to ensure that Nordic teachers are used for PhD courses, like having Edvard Mörtsell and Stefan Larsson from HEAC to teach the statistics course at DARK, and include the observational astronomers in Oslo (Jaunsen, Dahle, Wold) in teaching the observing courses at La Palma.

• Visions for continued co-operation after the grant period.

We are convinced that the key to continued success is the focus in this proposal on the younger generation. It is here that new networking is most likely to last. We note that the national centra in this proposal have large impacts on the future of nordic astronomy. In Copenhagen, Johan Fynbo, Anja Andersen and Steen Hansen have obtained permanent positions that they will take up after the end of the DARK centre. At the same time Steen Hannestad has taken up a permanent position in Aarhus. It is clear that these structures will have a long lasting value, and the networks and collaborations set up at an early stage will influence Nordic astronomy for many years to come.

Similarily, Göran Östlin is a young permanent researcher at HEAC who is now actively leading the observational cosmology group. Jesper Sollerman, the PI of this proposal, works both in Stockholm and at DARK. He will take up a permanent position in Stockholm after finishing his present Royal Academy fellowship. Edvard Mörtsell is gearing towards a position at the Physics department in Stockholm. Again, in a rather small field as astronomy – this new development will have impact for many years to come.

The situation in Oslo is somewhat different. At the Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics one of the three research groups work on Cosmology – the main interest of this proposal. While efforts are made to secure positions in the CMB area (Where Frode Hansen is the most recent faculty member). But there are also several young but very experienced optical observers that we want to tie to this network that are still on soft money, for example Haakon Dahle, Andreas Jaunsen and Margrethe Wold. A stronger connection to DARK and HEAC would clerly be very valuable for this group.

The board of NNAC will contain 9 members;

Göran Östlin will be main responsible for the HEAC node. Johan Fynbo for the DARK node and Haakon Dahle for the CMA node. These three are mentioned also at other occasions throughout this proposal and will ensure direct contact with the research and research training at the different sites. We also include Edvard Mörtsell for a direct contact to the more theoretical side and to the Physics department in Stockholm. The rest of the board members are PhD-students from DARK and from HEAC. They will ensure the voice of the younger generation. Aurdis Eliasdottir sort of represents the Icelandic research, which is also present on Iceland via Gulli Björnssons participation – and we also envision collaboration with Palli Jakobsson at Leichter university (Icelander with a PhD from the DARK centre).

The network will be led by Jesper Sollerman. This is a natutal choice since JS is one of the original founders of DARK and also a member of HEAC. He has spent the last 1.5 years commuting between the two centra and spend about half of his time at both places.

JS has an interest in nordic research training and has formely led two NORDFORSK summerschools and also lead research training seminars at Stockholm university. Sollerman has adminstrative experience from the DARK board as head of the visitor programme and workshops. JS supervise PhD students at both DARK and HEAC.

On the research side, Sollerman is a member of several international cosmology projects, such as ESSENCE and SDSSII, and is author of more than 75 papers. He leads the Dark Eneregy theme at DARK and is a member of the supernova group in Stockholm. He is also actively involved in GRB research.

• What considerations are made to increase equal participation of women and men?

Gender balance is a difficult issue in the field of astrophysics and cosmology. This reserach field is clearly dominated by men. We have in this proposal included collaboration with Anja Andersen in Copenhagen, Cecilia Kozma in Stockholm and Margrethe Wold in Oslo. But among the more senior researchers the dominance by men is complete.

The only way to actively work with these issues if to try improvements for the future. Both at DARK and at HEAC there are attempts to put gender issues on the agenda. DARK have about 50% women among the researchers, but most females are clearly at student or PhDstudent level.

In this network we have invited 5 PhD students in the board. This is because the network is mainly geared towards younger researchers and the voice of the PhD-students therefore need to be strong. Of the 5 PhD-students in the board, 4 are women. Again, this is an active choise to try to work towards a better gender balance for the future.

On the master student level, the representation of females is also not bad. In Oslo Josefine Selj is about to finish her master thesis, at DARK Christine Henriksen is doing the same. Both of these have already spent some time visiting other Nordic centra within our field of reserach, and continued support is the best way to enourage the future careers of young female scientists. This is one of the important goals for NNAC.

• Comments concerning the estimated number of researchers, including students

The participating centra include a large number of researchers. We do not a priori want to exclude members of these centra as potential participants in this network. Therefore, formally, all members of HEAC, DARK and CMA are to some extent included in NNAC. This is about 100 researchers, and about 35 of these are PhD students.

Clearly, in order to have an efficient organization the efforts have to be focused. The board (Box 8) will be deciding on the usage of the grant, and has been selected as a functioning subgroup of the larger pool of scientists. The main intention of NNAC is to support a younger generation that may not have the same amount of grants available for networking. This is particularly true for PhD-students. The main scientific topic is observational cosmology, including gamma-ray bursts, supernovae and gravitational lensing. This will allow the required focus for the network, and we estimate that about 30-40 researchers will be most actively participating in the network activities.

p15 Presentation of participating groups (maximum one page per group) (you can copy this page)
Group leader’s last name		First name	Sex	Position
Hjorth		Jens	M	Prof.
University				Academic degree
Copenhagen University				Prof.
Department/Institution				Telephone (work)
DARK				+4535325928
Dept. address				Telefax (work)
Juliane Maries Vej 30
Postal code	City	Country	E-mail
2100	Copenhagen	Denmark	hjorth@dark-cosmology.dk
Subject area (See last page)
Physics
Any other participants in the group (use more space if necessary)
Last name		First name	Sex	Position
Fynbo		Johan	M	Lektor
Last name		First name	Sex	Position
Sollerman		Jesper	M	Lektor
Last name		First name	Sex	Position
Nilsson		Kim	F	PhD student
Last name		First name	Sex	Position
Eliasdottir		Ardis	F	PhD student
Last name		First name	Sex	Position
Hansen		Steen	M	Lektor
Description of the group and its activities The Dark Cosmology Centre (DARK for short) is a new (2005) CoE at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen. This group aim to probe the dark side of the universe, focusing on the dark ages, dark matter, dark energy and dust. This concentrated effort by a young and energetic staff will hopefully lead to major breakthroughs in these rapidly evolving fields. Already, DARK is publishing at a high rate, with number of publications and citations comparable to the worldleading American institutes of similar size. Of the ~10 senior researchers and 15 PhD-students, 50% are men, and 50% have an international background. For further information, please see the extensive www-page http://www.astro.ku.dk/dark Johan Fynbo will lead the dark node. He is recognized for his research on distant galaxies and for his work on Gamma-Ray bursts. He lead the Dark ages theme at DARK, supervise 4 PhD-students (one in Oslo, co-supervision like this is one important goal of NNAC), and recently took up a permanent position at NBI. Jesper Sollerman is the PI on this proposal and is described in detail elsewhere. Kim Nilsson, Swedish PhD-student at dark who spent her first two years at the European Southern Observatory. Important co-worker (with Fynbo) on the VISTA project, that will be an important project for probing the dark ages in the next coming years. Ardis Eliasdottir, Icelandic PhD-student at DARK. Working on Gravitational lensing, which is one of the topics represented both in Stockholm (Physics department) and in Olso. Steen Hansen, most recently employed reseracher at DARK. Wolrks mainly on Dark Matter theory.

p15 Presentation of participating groups (maximum one page per group) (you can copy this page)
Group leader’s last name		First name	Sex	Position
Fransson		Claes	M	Professor, PI for HEAC
University				Academic degree
Stockholm University				PhD, profesor
Department/Institution				Telephone (work)
Department of astronomy				55378517
Dept. address				Telefax (work)
AlbaNova University Center				55378510
Postal code	City	Country	E-mail
10691	Stockholm	Sweden	claes@astro.su.se
Subject area (See last page)
Any other participants in the group (use more space if necessary)
Last name		First name	Sex	Position
Östlin		Göran	M	Docent, lecturer
Last name		First name	Sex	Position
Mörtsell		Edvard	M	Docent, research associate
Last name		First name	Sex	Position
Riehm		Teresa	F	PhD student
Last name		First name	Sex	Position
Micheva		Genoveva	F	PhD student
Last name		First name	Sex	Position
Blomqvist		Michael	M	PhD student
Description of the group and its activities The High Energy Astrophysics and Cosmology centre (HEAC) is a joint collaboration between the astronomy and physics (cosmology group) department at Stockholm university and the physics department (astroparticle physics group) at the Royal Technical University in Stockholm (KTH), bringing together all the local expertise in the area of cosmology and high energy astrophysics. It was selected by the Swedish Research council as one of five (out of more than 100 applications) national centres of excellence during their first call in 2005. The main activity of HEAC, in addition to active research, is to run a interdiciplinary research school for graduate students using the broad range of expertise among the participants. The scientific staff consists of about 25 senior researchers and postdocs and about 35 PhD students. The scientific activities span from instrument development, through observational cosmology and high energy astrophysics, to theoretical cosmology and string therory. Short description of participants: Göran Östlin: Docent and lecturer at department of astronomy, PhD in 1998, author of more than 30 refereed publications. Works with observational cosmology and extragalactic astronomy, particular interest is galaxy evolution and starbursts. Edvard Mörtsell, Docent and research associate at department of astronomy, PhD in 2002 (from Physics department), author of more than 20 refereed publications. Works with cosmology, in particular gravitational lensing and its application to supernova cosmology. Teresa Riehm, PhD student at HEAC, started in 2005, works with gravitational lensing and supernovae at department of Astronomy, but supervised by Ariel Goobar at Physics department. Genoveva Micheva, PhD student at HEAC, started in 2005, works with galaxy evolution with GÖ. Michael Blomqvist, PhD student at HEAC, started in 2005, works with supernova cosmology and cosmological parameters.

15 Presentation of participating groups (maximum one page per group) (you can copy this page)
Group leader’s last name		First name	Sex	Position
Winther		Ragnar	M	Professor, Director
University				Academic degree
University of Oslo				PhD
Department/Institution				Telephone (work)
Centre of Mathemetics for Applications				+47 22855935
Dept. address				Telefax (work)
CMA, Dept. of Mathematics, P.O. Box 1053, Blindern				+47 22854349
Postal code	City	Country	E-mail
0316	Oslo	Norway	Ragnar.winther@cma.uio.no
Subject area (See last page)
Phyiscs, mathematics
Any other participants in the group (use more space if necessary)
Last name		First name	Sex	Position
Dahle		Håkon	M	PostDoc
Last name		First name	Sex	Position
Hansen		Frode	M	Assistant Professor
Last name		First name	Sex	Position
Wold		Margrethe	F	PostDoc
Last name		First name	Sex	Position
Jaunsen		Andreas	M	PostDoc
Last name		First name	Sex	Position
Elgaroy		Oysten	M	Professor
Description of the group and its activities The Centre of Mathematics for Applications (CMA) is a collaboration between the institutes of mathematics, physics, theoretical astrophysics (ITA) and informatics at the University of Oslo. Established in 2003, it was one of the first 13 such centres in Norway. A five-year extension was recently granted, after an evaluation by an international committee which gave the overall evaluation ”Exceptionally Good”. One of the main projects of the center is mathematical applications in the physical sciences, which includes applications within the field of cosmology, with participation from ITA. The cosmology effort within the context of CMA has emphasis on developing tools to interpret large future observational data sets, e.g. from measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). The cosmology group at ITA has a scientific staff of 9 senior researchers and postdocs and 5 PhD students. Current areas of interest include studies of the CMB, with particular focus on Norwegian participation in the ESA Planck project (Hansen, Eriksen, Lilje), theoretical studies with particular emphasisis on understanding Dark Energy (Elgarøy, Puetzfeld, Amarzguioui, Kristiansen, Rudjord), observational studies of dark matter, galaxy formation and evolution (Dahle, Wold, Jaunsen, Dalland Evans), and gamma-ray bursts (Jaunsen, Ovaldsen, Selj). Short description of participants and their main research activities: Håkon Dahle: Observational studies of dark matter and structure formation from gravitational lensing. PhD 2000. 16 refereed publications. Frode Hansen: Observational studies of the Cosmic Microwave Background. PhD 2002. 29 refereed publications. Margrethe Wold: Observational studies of galaxy formation and evolution and active galactic nuclei. PhD 2001. 15 refereed publications. Andreas Jaunsen: Observational studies of gamma-ray bursts and gravitational lensing. PhD 2000. 32 refereed publications. Øystein Elgarøy: Theoretical studies of fundamental physics, particle physics and Dark Energy from cosmological observations. PhD 1999. 24 refereed publications.