RINGO Shortlisted for Times Higher Education Supplement Award

The ARI has been shortlisted for a Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) award, thanks to pioneering research with the RINGO polarimeter on the LT. The award for "Research Project of the Year" is for the design and building of RINGO in-house in just six months for Gamma Ray Burst (GRB) research.

See box at right for list of RINGO development team members. More details on RINGO itself can be found by following this link.

GRB events are unpredictable, but using the LT's rapid-response capability, researchers obtained an optical polarisation measurement nearly 100 times faster than any previously published. This enabled them for the first time to rule out the presence of magnetic fields in the emitting material flowing out from the explosion.

Chris Collins, Director of the ARI, said: "This is a great achievement. GRBs are exciting to observe as they are the most powerful explosions in the universe enabling astronomers to test physics in the most extreme conditions. The entire project was conceived and executed in-house and these new results are a great credit to our team of talented astronomers and technical staff."