Jim Hinton

X-ray and Observational Astronomy Group

My reasearch is in the area of high energy astrophysics, in particular astronomy with high energy gamma-ray photons. Teraelectronvolt photons (a billion times more energetic than X-rays) provide us with a probe of high energy universe and in particular with information on the acceleration and propagation of ultra-relativistic particles - an important constituent of our own and other galaxies. The field of TeV gamma-ray astronomy is currently in a period of rapid progress with major results from current ground-based instruments such as H.E.S.S., VERITAS and MAGIC. The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) Design Study is the first step towards building an instrument ten times more sensitive than H.E.S.S. For a review of the status of the field see the article by myself and Werner Hofmann on Teraelectronvolt Astronomy in Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics. My research is supported by STFC and the Leverhulme Trust.

I am currently the coordinator of the CTA working group for array simulations. I am a member of the XROA group at the University of Leicester and a Visting Professor at the University of Leeds. I was (fairly) recently profiled in Astronomy and Geophysics. In my spare time I still (sometimes) climb.

I teach the third year undergraduate lecture course on Elementary Particles and am responsible for the CTA laboratory in the new SRC annex.

My papers on ADS.