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Black Hole

Lensing of space time around a black hole. At Oxford we study black holes observationally and theoretically on all size and time scales - it is some of our core work.

Credit: ALAIN RIAZUELO, IAP/UPMC/CNRS. CLICK HERE TO VIEW MORE IMAGES.

Andrew Bunker

Professor of Astrophysics

Research theme

  • Astronomy and astrophysics

Sub department

  • Astrophysics

Research groups

  • Galaxy formation and evolution
Andy.Bunker@physics.ox.ac.uk
Telephone: 01865 (2)83126
Denys Wilkinson Building, room 702
  • About
  • Publications

JADES: The star formation and chemical enrichment history of a luminous galaxy at z ∼ 9.43 probed by ultra-deep JWST/NIRSpec spectroscopy

Astronomy & Astrophysics EDP Sciences 697 (2025) a89

Authors:

Mirko Curti, Joris Witstok, Peter Jakobsen, Chiaki Kobayashi, Emma Curtis-Lake, Kevin Hainline, Xihan Ji, Francesco D’Eugenio, Jacopo Chevallard, Roberto Maiolino, Jan Scholtz, Stefano Carniani, Santiago Arribas, William M Baker, Rachana Bhatawdekar, Kristan Boyett, Andrew J Bunker, Alex Cameron, Phillip A Cargile, Stéphane Charlot, Daniel J Eisenstein, Zhiyuan Ji, Benjamin D Johnson, Nimisha Kumari, Michael V Maseda, Brant Robertson, Maddie S Silcock, Sandro Tacchella, Hannah Übler, Giacomo Venturi, Christina C Williams, Christopher NA Willmer, Chris Willott
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The JWST/PASSAGE Survey: Testing Reionization Histories with JWST’s First Unbiased Survey for Ly α Emitters at Redshifts 7.5–9.5

The Astrophysical Journal American Astronomical Society 984:1 (2025) 95

Authors:

Axel Runnholm, Matthew J Hayes, Vihang Mehta, Matthew A Malkan, Claudia Scarlata, Kalina V Nedkova, Marc Rafelski, Benedetta Vulcani, Mason Huberty, E Christian Herenz, Anne Hutter, Sean Bruton, Ayan Acharyya, Hakim Atek, Ivano Baronchelli, Andrew J Battisti, Maruša Bradač, Andrew J Bunker, Y Sophia Dai, Clea Hannahs, Farhanul Hasan, Keunho J Kim, Nicha Leethochawalit, Yu-Heng Lin

Abstract:

Lyα emission is one of a few observable features of galaxies that can trace the neutral hydrogen content in the Universe during the Epoch of Reionization (EoR). To accomplish this, we need an efficient way to survey for Lyα emitters (LAEs) at redshifts beyond 7, requiring unbiased emission-line observations that are both sufficiently deep and wide to cover enough volume to detect them. Here we present results from PASSAGE—a pure-parallel JWST/NIRISS slitless spectroscopic survey to detect LAEs deep into the EoR, without the bias of photometric preselection. We identify four LAEs at 7.5 ≤ z ≤ 9.5 in four surveyed pointings and estimate the luminosity function (LF). We find that the LF does show a marked decrease compared to post-reionization measurements, but the change is a factor of ≲10, which is less than expected from theoretical calculations and simulations, as well as observational expectations from the pre-JWST literature. Modeling of the intergalactic medium and expected Lyα profiles implies that these galaxies reside in ionized bubbles of ⪆2 physical Mpc. We also report that in the four fields we detect {3, 1, 0, 0} LAEs, which could indicate strong field-to-field variation in the LAE distribution, consistent with a patchy H i distribution at z ∼ 8. We compare the recovered LAE number counts with expectations from simulations and discuss the potential implications for reionization and its morphology.
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Extreme Neutral Outflow in an Inactive Quenching Galaxy at z$\sim$1.3

(2025)

Authors:

Yang Sun, Zhiyuan Ji, George H Rieke, Francesco D'Eugenio, Yongda Zhu, Fengwu Sun, Xiaojing Lin, Andrew J Bunker, Jianwei Lyu, Pierluigi Rinaldi, Christopher NA Willmer
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BEACON: JWST NIRCam Pure-parallel Imaging Survey. I. Survey Design and Initial Results

The Astrophysical Journal American Astronomical Society 983:2 (2025) 152

Authors:

Takahiro Morishita, Charlotte A Mason, Kimi C Kreilgaard, Michele Trenti, Tommaso Treu, Benedetta Vulcani, Yechi Zhang, Abdurro’uf, Anahita Alavi, Hakim Atek, Yannick Bahé, Maruša Bradač, Larry D Bradley, Andrew J Bunker, Dan Coe, James Colbert, Viola Gelli, Matthew J Hayes, Tucker Jones, Tadayuki Kodama, Nicha Leethochawalit, Zhaoran Liu, Matthew A Malkan, Vihang Mehta

Abstract:

We introduce the Bias-free Extragalactic Analysis for Cosmic Origins with NIRCam (BEACON) survey, a JWST Cycle 2 program allocated up to 600 pure-parallel hours of observations. BEACON explores high-latitude areas of the sky with JWST/NIRCam over ∼100 independent sight lines, totaling ∼0.3 deg2, reaching a median F444W depth of ≈28.2 AB mag (5σ). Based on existing JWST observations in legacy fields, we estimate that BEACON will photometrically identify 25–150 galaxies at z > 10 and 500–1000 at z ∼ 7–10 uniquely enabled by an efficient multiple filter configuration spanning 0.9–5.0 μm. The expected sample size of z > 10 galaxies will allow us to obtain robust number density estimates and to discriminate between different models of early star formation. In this paper, we present an overview of the survey design and initial results using the first 19 fields. We present 129 galaxy candidates at z ≳7 identified in those fields, including 11 galaxies at z ≳10 and several UV-luminous (MUV < −21 mag) galaxies at z ∼ 8. The number densities of z < 13 galaxies inferred from the initial fields are overall consistent with those in the literature. Despite reaching a considerably large volume (∼105 Mpc3), however, we find no galaxy candidates at z > 13, providing us with a complimentary insight into early galaxy evolution with minimal cosmic variance. We publish imaging and catalog data products for these initial fields. Upon survey completion, all BEACON data will be coherently processed and distributed to the community along with catalogs for redshift and other physical quantities.
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The Luminosity Function and Clustering of H$\alpha$ Emitting Galaxies at $z\approx4-6$ from a Complete NIRCam Grism Redshift Survey

(2025)

Authors:

Xiaojing Lin, Eiichi Egami, Fengwu Sun, Haowen Zhang, Xiaohui Fan, Jakob M Helton, Feige Wang, Andrew J Bunker, Zheng Cai, Daniel J Eisenstein, Daniel T Jaffe, Zhiyuan Ji, Xiangyu Jin, Maria Anne Pudoka, Sandro Tacchella, Wei Leong Tee, Pierluigi Rinaldi, Brant Robertson, Yang Sun, Christopher NA Willmer, Chris Willott, Junyu Zhang, Yongda Zhu

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