Astronomy - Astrophysics - Space Science/Particle Astrophysics - Neutrino Physics

This area of research exploration, encompasses about one-third of the faculty members of the department. For students interested in graduate work in astrophysics, an astrophysics specialization is provided as part of the graduate curriculum in the Department of Physics and Astronomy.

OBSERVATIONAL ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
Faculty:

• Campbell, Amy - (Active Galactic Nuclei)
• Clayton, Geoff - (Dust everywhere, R CrB stars)
• Hynes, Robert - (Multi-wavelength observations of Black Holes and Neutron Stars)
• Landolt, Arlo - (Optical standard star photometry, variable stars, eclipsing binaries, star clusters)
• Schaefer, Brad - (Gamma-ray bursts, supernovae, novae, Kuiper Belt Objects, sunspots, history of astronomy)

Postdoctoral Researchers:

• Clem, James - (standard stars for Sloan photometry)
• Pearson, Kevin - (Modeling of flare light curves and spectra and accretion disk dynamics)

Graduate Students:

• Xiao, Limin - (Gamma-Ray Bursts)
• Andrews, Jennifer - (ISM and variable stars)
• Bradley, Charles - (X-ray binaries)
• Zhang, Yuan - (X-ray binaries)

The observational astrophysical group studies a wide variety of sources, including black holes (in binaries, active galaxies, and gamma-ray bursts), the biggest explosions (supernovae, novae, and gamma-ray bursts), and variable stars (R CrB stars, binaries of all types), plus the standard stars on which all photometry is based. The observational astronomy group involves multiwavelength observations using ground-based telescopes (Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona, Keck Observatory in Hawaii, Lowell Observatory in Arizona, Las Campanas in Chile, and McDonald Observatory in west Texas) and space telescopes (Hubble Space Telescope, Spitzer Space Telescope, Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Swift gamma-ray burst observatory, and FUSE) for data from gamma-ray, x-ray, ultraviolet, optical, and infrared wavelengths.

THEORETICAL ASTROPHYSICS
Faculty:

• Frank, Juhan - (Accretion, binaries and AGN)
• Tohline, Joel - (star formation, hydrodynamics of gravity wve sources)

Postdoctoral Researchers:

• Motl, Patrick - (Newtonian and relativistic hydrodynamics in binaries)
• Pearson, Kevin - (Modeling of flare light curves and spectra and accretion disk dynamics)

Graduate Students:

• Even, Wes - (binary simulations for nova)
• Gokhale, Vayu - (Accretion in binaries)
• Kopparapu, Ravi - (Gravity waves from binaries, exo-planets)
• Park, Ilsoon - (contact binaries)

The core questions for the theoretical astrophysics group are the hydrodynamics of compact objects (black holes, neutron stars, and white dwarfs) and their accretion disks at times of violent actions (collisions, flares, star formation). A typical role is to calculate the gravity waves from collisions for LIGO and LISA. The hydrodynamics is run using SuperMIKE, which is LSU's supercomputer.

SPACE SCIENCE/PARTICLE ASTROPHYSICS
Faculty:

• Cherry, Michael - (Hard x-ray/gamma-ray astronomy, cosmic rays, BATSE, CASTER)
• Guzik, T. Gregory - (Hard x-ray/gamma-ray astronomy, cosmic rays, ATIC, LaACES, CASTER, ACCESS, Highland Road Observatory)
• Matthews, James - (Very high energy cosmic ray air showers, Auger)
• McNeil, Roger - (Auger, L3 LEP collider at CERN)
• Stacy, Gregory - (Hard x-ray/gamma-ray astronomy, COMPTEL, CASTER, MEGA)
• Wefel, John - (Cosmic rays, high-energy interactions, ATIC, ACCESS, Louisiana Space Consortium)

Postdoctoral Researchers

• Case, Gary - (CASTER, BATSE, ACCESS)
• Isbert, Joachim - (ATIC, ACCESS)

Graduate Students:

• McEwen, Megan - (Auger)

Space Science and Particle Astrophysics is the study of the highest energy coming from the Universe; x-rays, gamma-rays, and cosmic rays. The targets include black holes in binaries and active galaxies, cosmic rays from the "knee" near >10¹⁵ ev to the highest energies above 10¹⁹ ev, gamma-ray bursts, and supernova explosions. Questions attacked include "What is the origin of the highest energy cosmic rays?", and "Where are the black holes in our Universe?". The group uses spacecraft experiments (COMPTEL, BATSE), balloon-born experiments (ATIC), and ground-based experiments (Auger). Experiments under development include ACCESS, MEGA, and CASTER. Detector development includes applications to medical imaging and national security.

NEUTRINO PHYSICS
Faculty:

• Kutter, Thomas - (SNO: solar neutrinos, electron anti-neutrinos; K2K/T2K: long baseline neutrino oscillations)
• Svoboda, Robert - (Super-Kamiokande, KamLAND, Double CHOOZ, solar neutrinos, neutrino mixing)

Postdoctoral Researchers:

• Dazeley, Steven - (KamLAND, proton decay)
• Goon, Jason - (SNO, T2K, solar neutrinos, neutrino oscillations)
• Hatakeyama, Shuichiro - (Super-Kamiokande, neutrino beam)

Neutrino physics is a fast moving, fast growing, and exciting field where the boundaries of the standard model of particle physics are being pushed. Higher questions include the possibility of CP-violating effects in the lepton sector, the origin of the dominance of matter over anti-matter, and the size of neutrino mixing angles. Work in the department is based on the following experiments: Super-Kamiokande, KamLAND, Double Chooz, Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, K2K and T2K.

Updated: Tue, 09-Oct-2007 1:49 PM