Dr Adam Ingram will lead the X-ray Measurements of Accreting black holes with Polarimetric-Spectral-timing techniques (X-MAPS). It is among the successful projects that have received funding from The European Research Council (ERC), which has awarded its Consolidator Grants to 328 researchers. These grants, totalling €678 million, aim to support outstanding scientists and scholars as they establish their independent research teams and develop their most promising scientific ideas. The funding is provided through the EU’s Horizon Europe programme.

X-MAPS

Dr Adam Ingram, Senior Lecturer at Newcastle University’s School of Mathematics, Statistics and Physics, said:  “The X-MAPS project aims to revolutionise our understanding of black holes in so-called X-ray binary systems, whereby the black hole is powering bright X-ray radiation by stripping material from a nearby star. I am interested in the very compact region in the vicinity of the event horizon, where exotic predictions of Einstein’s theory of General Relativity are expected to be taking place. The challenge is that this region is so tiny on the sky that we cannot make a direct image. X-MAPS will use recent breakthroughs we have made in developing indirect mapping techniques to uncover why X-ray binaries behave the way they do and how their black holes were formed.

“I’m very excited to get this grant, as it gives me the resources I need to be really ambitious. The project involves combining what we’ve recently learned from the polarisation of the X-ray signal with what we had already learned from the rapid fluctuations we see in the X-ray brightness. To achieve that, we need to use machine learning, training artificial neural networks to take the place of very sophisticated but very computationally intensive models.

Consolidator Grants

The grants will support scientific projects spanning all disciplines of research from engineering to life sciences to humanities. For example, better understanding of what influences positive societal responses to immigrants; using AI to improve firefighting strategies - with realistic 3D images and physical simulations; and analysing how the “losing” voters of a democratically conducted election can come to accept their loss.

President of the European Research Council Professor Maria Leptin said: “Congratulations to all the researchers who have won ERC Consolidator Grants, in this latest round for the mid-career stage. Whilst we had the funds available to back more applicants this year than in 2023, the fact remains that many applicants who were rated as excellent in this competition will still not be funded due to lack of budget. This waste of talent can only be tackled by increasing the investment in blue-sky research in Europe.”

Adapted with thanks from the ERC.