Description: Design and commissioning of ultrafast, deep sub-electron read-noise optical cameras (e.g. Lightspeed) for ground-based telescopes to capture millisecond-timescale photometric variability.
Ashley builds instruments that must work unattended in the worst environment on Earth: the PLATO and related autonomous observatories on the Antarctic plateau (Dome A/C), where he characterised the site's exceptional infrared background, seeing and atmospheric stability, and built the power, thermal and control systems needed for a telescope to survive a polar winter with no human present. He also works on low-noise infrared detectors and on CubeSat instrumentation. Positioned against the established body of NV-ensemble quantum sensing work — DEER, nanoscale NMR and T1 relaxometry protocols operating at pT/sqrt(Hz) field sensitivity — the discipline here — making a low-noise detector work reliably outside a controlled laboratory, with a hard power and thermal budget — is the same one that separates a benchtop pT/sqrt(Hz) magnetometer from a deployable one, and it is a skill set the quantum sensing field is short of. Borderline inclusion under the astronomy criterion; kept because the sensor and its environment are the entire object of study.
NON-PREFERRED (astronomy pivot, kept for review). Burdge discovers and characterizes compact binary systems (white dwarfs, neutron stars, black holes) using time-domain, multi-messenger methods, and develops ultrafast sub-electron-noise optical camera instrumentation (Lightspeed) for ground-based telescopes; this is a good fit for the 'sufficiently complicated sensor enabling temporal resolution' astro-pivot category rather than core quantum sensing.
Trenti combines high-redshift galaxy and gamma-ray-burst science with hands-on space instrumentation: he leads SkyHopper, a 6U CubeSat carrying a cooled near-infrared telescope intended for rapid follow-up of transients and exoplanet transits, which is an unusually complete exercise in building a photon-starved instrument under severe SWaP constraints. The group also works on infrared detector characterisation and on-board autonomy. Positioned against the established body of NV-ensemble quantum sensing work — DEER, nanoscale NMR and T1 relaxometry protocols operating at pT/sqrt(Hz) field sensitivity — the relevance to a quantum-sensing candidate is the engineering discipline of getting a low-noise detector to work in a hostile, uncontrolled environment — the same problem that separates a laboratory pT/sqrt(Hz) NV magnetometer from a fieldable one. Borderline inclusion on the astronomy criterion; kept because instrumentation is a genuine focus rather than a by-product.