Research Summary

The design and development of the 8-m class Hobby-Eberly Telescope was accomplished at Penn State. This telescope, which is located at McDonald Observatory in west Texas, was dedicated in September 1997, and is now in the stage of Early Science Operations. Penn State's share of this unique telescope is 31% and all members of the Dep't of Astronomy & Astrophysics (faculty, postdocs, and students) have equal access to the instrument. Prof. Lawrence Ramsey is the Project Scientist for the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, and is the Principal Investigator for the Medium Resolution Spectrograph, a facility-class instrument being built at Penn State. In addition, state-of-the-art infrared instrumentation for the Hobby-Eberly Telescope is being developed by Prof. Jian Ge.

Satellite, rocket and shuttle payload development. Penn State has a large group of people involved in building and using space-based instruments. Prof. Gordon Garmire is the Instrument Principal Investigator for the ACIS (AXAF X-Ray CCD Imaging Spectrometer) experiment on CHANDRA, one of the four large NASA cornerstone missions. John Nousek is co-investigator on this project, and the work performed at Penn State included the design, testing, and evaluation of the instrument. Consequently, Penn State scientists have a large amount of guaranteed time with this Great Observatory. Now in development is SWIFT, NASA's mid-size explorer mission which is scheduled for launch in 2004. SWIFT is a rapid-reaction satellite aimed at the multi-wavelength investigation of gamma-ray bursts. Penn State is lead university partner in this project, and is building the mission's X-ray telescope and UV/optical telescope. John Nousek is the program's Principal Investigator, and Dave Burrows and a number of other Penn State faculty are co-Investigators. Finally, Prof. David Burrows is the Project Scientist for the Penn State X-ray sounding rocket program, which provides rapid student-assisted launch opportunities for new technologies.

Theoretical astrophysics . The department is active in a number of theoretical areas, including: the physics of gamma ray bursters, compact high energy sources, neutron stars, and the diffuse cosmological radiation background (Prof. Peter Meszaros); models of the intergalactic gas and galaxy dynamics (Prof. Jane Charlton); numerical relativity and astrophysics, black hole collisions, gravitational wave signal modeling, physics of the early universe, microwave background (Profs. Pablo Laguna and L. Sam Finn); physical processes, radiative transfer and atmospheric modeling of neutron stars (Prof. George Pavlov); numerical studies of the dynamics of galaxies and stellar systems relating to black holes, AGN, gamma-ray bursters, pulsars, star formation and planets (Prof. Steinn Sigurdsson); and physical cosmology, formation of the first structures in the universe, primordial star formation & gas chemistry, cosmological reionization, quasar absorption lines, cosmic microwave background and magnetic fields (Prof. Tom Abel). A significant component of this research involves large scale numerical computations with extensive use of advanced supercomputers at Los Alamos, NCSA, and the Penn State Center for Academic Computing (CAC).

Observational Cosmology . Penn State has a large extragalactic group. Research programs include: the extragalactic distance scale, the distribution of dark matter, the chemical evolution of galaxies, and the evolution of galaxy clusters through intracluster stars (Prof. Robin Ciardullo); quasar absorption lines and evolution of groups of galaxies (Prof. Jane Charlton); radio, X-ray and optical observations of AGNs (Prof. Eric Feigelson); detection of the most distant quasars in the universe via the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (Prof. Donald Schneider); X-ray and optical variability studies of active galaxies and Seyferts (Prof. Niel Brandt); and AGN line signatures in the X-ray and optical of supermassive black holes (Profs. Michael Eracleous and Niel Brandt).

Pulsar research and general relativistic phenomenology. Prof. Alex Wolszczan leads an extensive program that searches for millisecond pulsars; discovery of three planets orbiting the pulsar PSR 1257+12 was the first detection ever of planets outside the solar system. Related work includes research on tests of gravitational theories (with Prof. Pablo Laguna) and research on theories of pulsar systems and planet formation (with Prof. Steinn Sigurdsson).

IR Instrumentation and Planet Research . IR interferometry and spectrograph development; extra-solar planets; stellar astroseismology; adaptive optics, quasar absorption line systems (Profs. Jian Ge, Alex Wolszczan and Lawrence Ramsey).

Stellar astrophysics and galactic astronomy . Observational programs include high and moderate-resolution spectroscopy of active cool stars (Prof. Larry Ramsey; protostars and T-Tauri stars (Prof. Eric Feigelson); medium resolution spectroscopy of cataclysmic variables and other close binary stars (Prof. Richard Wade); surveys for brown dwarfs (Prof. Donald Schneider); X-ray spectroscopy, imaging and modeling of X-ray binaries (Prof. Niel Brandt); optical, ultraviolet and X-ray observations and modeling of cataclysmic variables (Prof. Michael Eracleous), and studies of novae and the central stars of planetary nebulae (Prof. Robin Ciardullo).

Space astronomy observations and data analysis . A wide variety of new space astronomy data is being obtained and analyzed, including: images and spectra obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) (Profs. Brandt Charlton, Ciardullo, Schneider, Wade, and Eracleous); X-ray images and spectra of supernovae remnants, star-forming regions, compact binaries, galaxies, clusters of galaxies, and quasars with the CHANDRA X-ray satellite (Profs. Burrows, Brandt, Feigelson, Garmire, Pavlov, and Nousek); extensive data from the ROSAT and ASCA X-ray satellites (Profs. Burrows, Brandt, Feigelson, Garmire, Nousek and Pavlov); and spectra of cataclysmic variables with the International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE), Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer (EUVE) and Voyager spacecrafts (Prof. Richard Wade).

Experimental particle astrophysics is being carried out by Prof. Jim Beatty as part of the Pierre Auger ultra-high energy cosmic ray project, a large area array designed to study CRs up to 1E20 eV energies, and as part of the HEAT (High Energy Antimatter Telescope) and ACCESS (Advanced Calorimeter for Composition of Elements on the Space Station) projects. Related theoretical studies are being carried by Prof. Peter Meszaros on ultra-high energy cosmic ray, neutrino and photon sources.
Collaborative studies with scientists in other departments on interdisciplinary subjects, such as the statistical methodology of astronomical data analysis (Prof. Feigelson with Prof. Babu in Statistics), and the Center of Gravitational Physics and Geometry (Profs. Charlton, Laguna, Meszaros and Wolszczan) with a number of faculty members from the Departments of Physics and Mathematics.
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