Professor Vik Dhillon

Professor of Astrophysics

Contact details

• Room : E40
• Phone : +44 (0)114 22 24528
• Fax : +44 (0)114 22 23555

email : vik.dhillon@sheffield.ac.uk

Personal web page

Research interests

• Interacting binary stars
• High time-resolution astrophysics
• Astronomical instrumentation

Teaching

• PHY105
• PHY213
• PHY319 (Tenerife)
• PHY473
• PHY474

Departmental administration

• Chair of the Recruitment Committee
• Chair of the Physical Planning Committee
• Member of the Departmental Executive Committee
• Year tutor for second-year astronomy

Professional activities

• Member, SOC for two international conferences: Astrotomography, JD9 of IAU General Assembly, Sydney (2003) and The Universe at Sub-second Timescales, Edinburgh (2007)
• Member, PPARC Fellowships Panel (2002-03).
• Member PPARC Astronomy Grants Panel (2003-05).
• Member ESO OPC D Panel (2007- ).
• Principal Investigator of the ULTRACAM project, the world's leading optical instrument for high-speed astrophysics, and the first UK instrument to be mounted on the 8.2-m Very Large Telescope in Chile.

Recent key publications

• A Brown Dwarf Mass Donor in an Accreting Binary. Littlefair et al, 2006, Science, 314, 1578-1580
• High-speed, multicolour optical photometry of the anomalous X-ray pulsar 4U 0142+61 with ULTRACAM. Dhillon et al, 2005, MNRAS, 363, 609-614
• The mass of the white dwarf in the recurrent nova U Scorpii. Thoroughgood et al, 2001, MNRAS, 327, 1323-1333
• ULTRACAM: an ultrafast, triple-beam CCD camera for high-speed astrophysics. Dhillon et al, 2007, 378, 825-840
• Roche tomography of cataclysmic variables - III. Star-spots on AE Aqr. Watson et al, 2006, MNRAS, 368, 637-650