DiRAC invited researchers to submit aesthetically inspiring and scientifically interesting imagery generated using the DiRAC facility during the previous three years. With two categories: particle and nuclear physics images; and astronomy, cosmology and solar & planetary science images, the full range of submitted images and the theme winners can be found below.
The 2025 Research Image Competition was sponsored by Lenovo, who awarded each category winner a £250 prize.
This image, inspired by Hubble’s ‘tuning fork’ diagram, shows the detailed structure and morphological diversity of galaxies from the high-resolution COLIBRE simulations of galaxy formation. The galaxies are shown using colour images of stellar light, including extinction due to dust, as would be observed by the Hubble space telescope. Yellow regions correspond to old and blue to young stars. Red regions signal extinction of light by dust. Dust lanes are visible in most of the star-forming galaxies. From left to right, the galaxy sequences from elliptical, through lenticular, to disc galaxies. The upper and lower branches respectively show unbarred and barred galaxies, which are more likely to have prominent spiral arms.
This image was produced using the DiRAC-supported SWIFT software.
In a tokamak, the control of plasma turbulence is fundamental for achieving self-sustained fusion reactions. Turbulence is strongly influenced by zonal flow and its oscillating counterpart known as geodesic acoustic modes (GAMs), but several issues remain to be understood. This work, generated using Data Intensive, Cambridge, shows that the optical methods generally adopted in laser and optoelectronic contexts can be used to describe and predict characteristics of the GAM radial structures that can be interpreted as ‘waves’ propagating in space-time. The Figure shows a gyrokinetic simulation of the time evolution of the radial profile of the GAM electric field amplitude. Superimposed are predicted phase-path trajectories (yellow lines) that well reproduce the low GAM modulation.
