Bulletin of the American Physical Society
76th Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Section of APS
Volume 54, Number 16
Wednesday–Saturday, November 11–14, 2009; Atlanta, Georgia
Session BB: Astrophysics in the Southeast |
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Chair: Michael Fauerbach, Florida Gulf Coast University Room: Frankfurt |
Thursday, November 12, 2009 8:30AM - 9:00AM |
BB.00001: What is Nature Telling Us About Thermonuclear Supernovae?gv Invited Speaker: Thermonuclear (Type Ia) supernovae (SNe) have become the premier tools for measuring the distances to high-redshift galaxies. A decade ago they played the key role in the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe and the implied ``dark energy'' which apparently dominates the mass-energy density of the current universe. However, to move beyond the detection of cosmic acceleration to study its dynamic evolution requires a dramatic increase in the accuracy of supernova distance measures which are currently limited by an intrinsic uncertainty of $\sim 10$\%. Measuring distances with Type Ia supernovae has, for the most part, been an entirely empirical business. Furthermore, while there is general consensus on the basic theory of thermonuclear supernova explosions, the details of this picture are still the subject of much discussion. Many of these details can induce subtle shifts in the implied SN distance. So understanding (or at least constraining) these effects is crucial if we are to dramatically increase the accuracy of SN Ia distances. I will present results from several studies using new observational tools (most prominently infrared spectroscopy) to provide new constraints on our understanding of the details of thermonuclear supernova explosions. Generally these programs are revealing that the expanding supernova ejecta have a highly chemically layered structure. Such layering suggests a detonation scenario for the propagation of nuclear burning. However, the currently popular detonation scenarios all involve an early period of slow burning prior to detonation, and tend to predict a chemically turbulent region in the inner-most ejecta. However the observations seem imply that the chemical layering persists even in the earliest burning stages. Explaining this discrepancy will be a key test of future SN Ia explosion models. [Preview Abstract] |
Thursday, November 12, 2009 9:00AM - 9:30AM |
BB.00002: Astronomy in a Virtual Department: The SARA Consortium Invited Speaker: For almost 15 years, the Southeastern Association for Research in Astronomy (SARA) has operated a remotely-accessible 1-m telescope at the Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Arizona (see http://www.saraobservatory.org) that has served as a focus for faculty and student research. From its beginnings with four members, the SARA consortium has grown to include ten universities spanning Indiana to Florida and has recently assumed operations of a similar telescope at Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory in Chile. This talk will review some of SARA's most notable past and present activities as well as our future aspirations. We will also make a case for establishing new consortium-based initiatives in other areas of physics. [Preview Abstract] |
Thursday, November 12, 2009 9:30AM - 10:00AM |
BB.00003: Research, Teaching, and Outreach with the SARA Remote Observatory Invited Speaker: Our use of the SARA remote-operated observatories ranges from the classroom, through public outreach sessions, to graduate and faculty research. Teaching applications include enrichment sessions for freshman classes, and data-taking sessions for students in upper-level lab courses where they can derive asteroid distances, ages of star clusters, and properties of eclipsing binary systems. Graduate students can enrich their observational experience, where SARA forms a useful bridge between a modern, small campus observatory and the larger facilities many will use for dissertation research. Some students use the SARA facilities as the backbone of theses or dissertations; in one example, the student obtained all the ground-based data she needed to supplement Hubble images using SARA within a single year. Faculty research benefits from the regular access and (often) quick availability of these modestly- sized telescopes. I will show some examples of follow-up from the Galaxy Zoo public- participation project in which SARA results were the first available confirming or path-finding data (in cases of a quasar light echo and extended ionized clouds around active galaxies). Regular access allows the telescope's use in a ``screening'' fashion for surveys. Finally, the depth of images quickly available with such instruments lends itself to powerful public-outreach opportunities, with images taken ``by request.'' One such session (at DragonCon in Atlanta) was able to satisfy requests for gravitational lenses, two dwarf planets, supernova remnants, and a dwarf galaxy in one session. [Preview Abstract] |
Thursday, November 12, 2009 10:00AM - 10:30AM |
BB.00004: Expanding Opportunities: SARA and the Undergraduate Observer Invited Speaker: Agnes Scott College, a women's college located in Atlanta, is a member of the Southeastern Association for Research in Astronomy (SARA). As a member, the College's Department of Physics \& Astronomy uses the telescope for both education and research, supplementing observations made with national telescopes operating at other wavelengths such as the Very Large Array (VLA) and the Spitzer Space Telescope. The College has used its telescope time for introductory and upper level courses, and in its capstone senior seminar. In this talk I will highlight the ways in which SARA membership has allowed a small college to greatly expand research opportunities for undergraduate women at a small institution. [Preview Abstract] |
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