Thomas Collett

Biography

I am an astrophysicist and cosmologist studying how dark energy is affecting the expansion of the Universe. I do this using a phenomenon called strong gravitational lensing, where the path of light from a background galaxy is bent by a massive foreground galaxy to produce multiple images of the background source. The location where the lensed images form is sensitive to the cosmological parameters and the dark matter distribution in the lens galaxy and throughout the Universe. I’m trying to probe all three with observations from the world's leading telescopes.

My research has been funded by the Royal Astronomical Society, University of Portsmouth, Science and Technolody Facilities Council and the Royal Society.

I won the Winton prize in 2020 and the Murdin prize in 2014.

I'm particularly proud of the following papers:

The most precise test of how mass warps spacetime over extragalactic scales

A large catalogue of new gravitational lenses discovered using machine learning

A cosmological model independent measurement of the Hubble constant

A measurement of the equation of state of dark energy from a double source plane lens

Research outputs

2024

Find the haystacks, then look for needles: the rate of strongly lensed supernovae in galaxy–galaxy strong gravitational lenses

Collett, T. E., Enzi, W. J. R., Gagliano, A., Lokken, M., Magee, M. R., Pierel, J. D. R., Ryczanowski, D., de Murieta, A. S.

1 Dec 2024, In: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 535, 3, p. 2523-2537, 15p.

Euclid. I. Overview of the Euclid mission

Achúcarro, A., Adam, R., Adamek, J., Addison, G. E., Aghanim, N., Aguena, M., Ajani, V., Akrami, Y., Al-Bahlawan, A., Alavi, A., Albuquerque, I. S., Alestas, G., Alguero, G., Allaoui, A., Allevato, V., Alonso-Tetilla, A. V., Altieri, B., Alvarez-Candal, A., Amara, A., Avila, S., Bacon, D., Barroso, J. A. A., Beutler, F., Bose, B., Collaboration, E., Collett, T. E., Fiorini, B., Fonseca De La Bella, L., Fonseca, J., Gaztanaga, E., Joudaki, S., Koyama, K., Leclercq, F., Manera, M., Maraston, C., Markovic, K., Mellier, Y., Nadathur, S., Nichol, R. C., Noller, J., Pace, F., Pattison, C., Percival, W. J., Pollack, J. E., Pourtsidou, A., Raccanelli, A., Schewtschenko, J. A., Whalen, D. J., Winther, H. -., Youles, S.

29 Aug 2024, In: Astronomy and Astrophysics

How to break the mass sheet degeneracy with the light curves of microlensed Type Ia supernovae

Collett, T., De Murieta, A. S., Enzi, W., Krawczyk, C., Lundgren, A., Vernardos, G., Weisenbach, L.

1 Jul 2024, In: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 531, 4, p. 4349-4362, 14p.

Lensed Type Ia Supernova “Encore” at z = 2: the first instance of two multiply imaged supernovae in the same host galaxy

Agarwal, S., Agrawal, A., Arendse, N., Belli, S., Burns, C., Caminha, G. B., Cañameras, R., Chakrabarti, S., Chen, W., Cohen, S. H., Collett, T. E., Coulter, D. A., Dhawan, S., Diego, J. M., DŚilva, J. C., Ellis, R. S., Engesser, M., Ertl, S., Foo, N., Fox, O. D., Frye, B. L., Gall, C., Garuda, N., Gezari, S., Glazebrook, K., Gomez, S., Granata, G., Grillo, C., Gu, M., Hjorth, J., Huang, X., Jha, S. W., Joshi, B. A., Kamieneski, P. S., Kelly, P., Koekemoer, A. M., Larison, C., Li, J., Li, T., Moustakas, L. A., Newman, A. B., Pascale, M., Petrushevska, T., Pierel, J. D., Poidevin, F., Pérez-Fournon, I., Rest, A., Robotham, A., Schuldt, S., Shahbandeh, M., Shajib, A. J., Siebert, M., Storfer, C., Strolger, L. G., Summers, J., Suyu, S. H., Talbot, M., Treu, T., Wang, Q., Wevers, T., Windhorst, R. A., Zenati, Y., Zitrin, A.

1 Jun 2024, In: Astrophysical Journal Letters. 967, 2, 9p., L37

Gravitational imaging through a triple source plane lens: revisiting the ΛCDM-defying dark subhalo in SDSSJ0946+1006

Ballard, D. J., Collett, T. E., Enzi, W. J. R., Smith, R. J., Turner, H. C.

1 Mar 2024, In: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 528, 4, p. 7564–7586, 23p.

Two-dimensional kinematics and dynamical modelling of the 'Jackpot' gravitational lens from deep MUSE observations

Collett, T. E., Smith, R. J., Turner, H. C.

1 Feb 2024, In: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 528, 2, p. 3559-3575, 17p.

2023

The impact of human expert visual inspection on the discovery of strong gravitational lenses

Ballard, D., Barroso, J. A. A., Bella, L. F. d. l., Birrer, S., Bromley, J., Buckley-Geer, E., Cabanac, R., Calçada, G. V., Cavalcante-Gomes, M. V., Cañameras, R., Chan, J. H. H., Clément, B., Collett, T. E., Cornen, C., Courbin, F., Daylan, T., Despali, G., Dhanasingham, B., Diego, J. M., Dye, S., Fritz, A., Gentile, F., Glazebrook, K., González, J., Grudskaia, A., Góis-Silva, F., Herle, A., Jackson, N., Joseph, R., Levine, B. C., Macmillan, C., Magee, M. R., Mahler, G., Maresca, J., Martinez, M. N., Mastache, J., Melo, A., Millon, M., More, A., Niemiec, A., O'Donnell, J. H., Ogando, R. L. C., Paic, E., Pan, Y., Rojas, K., Ryczanowski, D., Savary, E., Schuldt, S., Sierra, I., Tortora, C., Ureña-López, L. A., Verdugo, T., Verma, A., Wiesner, M. P., Wilde, J., Williams, D. M.

1 Aug 2023, In: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 523, 3, p. 4413–4430, 18p.

DeepZipper. II. Searching for Lensed Supernovae in Dark Energy Survey Data with Deep Learning

Abbott, T. M., Aguena, M., Andrade-Oliveira, F., Annis, J., Bacon, D., Bechtol, K., Birrer, S., Bocquet, S., Brooks, D., Buckley-Geer, E. J., Burke, D. L., Carretero, J., Castander, F. J., Collett, T., Conselice, C., Costa, L. N., Costanzi, M., De Vicente, J., Desai, S., Doel, P., Everett, S., Ferrero, I., Flaugher, B., Friedel, D., Frieman, J., García-Bellido, J., Gaztanaga, E., González, S. J., Gruen, D., Gruendl, R. A., Gutierrez, G., Hartley, W. G., Hinton, S. R., Hollowood, D. L., Honscheid, K., Kind, M. C., Kuehn, K., Kuropatkin, N., Lahav, O., Lidman, C., Lima, M., Martinez, M., Menanteau, F., Morgan, R., Möller, A., Nord, B., Rosell, A. C., Shajib, A. J., Smith, M., Thomas, D.

23 Jan 2023, In: Astrophysical Journal. 943, 1, 19

View all my research outputs

Professor Thomas Collett

Biography

Research outputs

2024

2023