Circumbinary planets are bodies that orbit both components in a binary star system. This thesis focuses on transits of these planets, which with the aid of the Kepler space telescope have recently led to the discovery of several such objects. First, transit timing variations - d…
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The main goal of this thesis is to test the viability of some modified theories of gravity suitable to describe gravitational phenomena at cosmological and astronomical scales. In the first part of the Thesis we study the viability of the Brans-Dicke theory (BDT) and the effecti…
Lenticular (S0) galaxies have long been thought of as evolved spirals, in which the star formation has been suppressed, the spiral arms have faded, and the luminosity of the bulge has been built up relative to the disc. However, the sequence of events that explains these three o…
Accurate stellar parameters are important not just to understand the stars themselves, but also for understanding the planets that orbit them. Despite the availability of high quality spectra, there are still many uncertainties in stellar spectroscopy. In this thesis, the finer …
The M–σ relations observed between the masses of central massive objects (CMOs: either a nuclear star cluster or a supermassive black hole) in galaxy nuclei and the stellar velocity dispersion of their host galaxy bulges strongly suggest that the evolution of CMOs and their host…
Much of the evolution of galaxies takes place in groups where feedback has the greatest impact on galaxy formation. By using an optically selected, statistically complete sample of 53 nearby groups (CLoGS), observed at radio (GMRT) and X-ray (Chandra and XMM-Newton) frequencies,…
Large scale digital sky surveys have produced an unprecedented volume of uniform data covering both vast proportions of the sky and a wide range of wavelength, from the ultraviolet to the near-infrared. The challenge facing astronomers today is how to use this multitude of infor…
The exploration of radio emission from the relativistic jets of X-ray binaries has become key to understanding accretion onto compact objects. Upgrades to existing radio telescope arrays have improved the ability of these instruments to detect faint sources and their unique beha…
The dynamical evolution of the matter content of the universe is modelled throughout this study as that of self and mutually gravitating Lagrangian fluids in the so called ΛCDM-Concordance cosmological framework which leads to the Hierarchical Clustering paradigm for the formati…
This thesis presents an investigation of local galaxies using new data from the Herschel Space Observatory. Herschel observes the entire far-infrared peak of galaxies, at higher sensitivities and angular resolution than previously possible, and can observe large samples of galax…
Short hard gamma-ray bursts (GRB) are believed to be produced by compact binary coalescences (CBC) { either double neutron stars or neutron star{black hole binaries. The same source is expected to emit strong gravitational radiation, detectable with existing and planned gravitat…
We study the effects of the supersonic collision of molecular clouds using smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) simulations. We review the observational evidence for cloud-cloud collision and previous computational work. We describe the SPH method, the algorithms used in the SP…
ABSTRACT High mass stars affect their environments on a large scale. However, the processes behind the formation of high mass stars are still relatively poorly understood compared to their low mass counterparts. Infrared dark clouds (IRDCs) and their cold cores (gravitationally …
The study of low mass star formation in our local Galaxy is particularly suited to HERSCHEL. The SPIRE spectrometer and photometer aboard the spacecraft operate in the ~ 200 - 600�m range and are well suited to probe the cold, dusty environments in molecular clouds where prestel…
The thesis concerns the statistical characterisation of large scale properties of the Universe. Two complementary data sets are considered: all-sky maps of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature fluctuations from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP); and la…
I present new optical and infrared photometry for a statistically complete sample of seven sources selected at 1.1 mm. Comparing their photometric redshifts with redshifts from previous 850 μm selected surveys indicates that 1.1 mm selected surveys may be better at finding high …
In this thesis, I present BLAST observations of the Carina Nebula and Herschel observations of NGC7538. I use the source extracting routine CSAR to identify 172 source in Carina and 94 sources in NGC7538. I fit SEDs to all the sources and calculate their mass, luminosity, temper…
Understanding the history of the formation of stars and evolution of galaxies is one of the foremost goals of astrophysics. While stars emit most of their energy at visible and ultraviolet wavelengths, during the early stages of star formation these photons are absorbed by the d…
Submillimetre galaxies are an important element in the history of the universe. There have been great advances in technology in the last ten years that have enabled deeper and more detailed investigations of these distant objects. In thisthesis I describe investigations of the p…