My research group investigates a range of topics in fundamental physics, using the Universe as a laboratory to explore scales and energies that cannot be probed in any terrestrial laboratory. Our research requires tight coupling between the experimental, analytical, and theoretical disciplines. We design, build, and field experiments including balloon-borne and space-based telescopes. Our investigations … Continued
I am the lead astrophysicist in the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC)–LIGO being the telescopes that first detected gravitational waves in 2015. My group’s astrophysics research involves methods from applied mathematics, statistics and computer science, with extensive use of high-performance computing. In parallel to our gravitational-wave source studies, we also study the formation and evolution of … Continued
I am an infrared spectroscopist who studies the early lives of stars and planetary systems seeking to understand pre-main sequence stellar evolution and the formation of planets. I build high-resolution infrared spectrographs. My group has also pioneered the manufacture and use of silicon immersion gratings for high resolution spectroscopy.
The research in my group is focused on determining what factors influence star formation. With recent advances in observational technology, it is now possible to characterize the physical conditions associated with modes of star formation throughout the nearby universe. We are working to understand how conditions prevalent in the universe, including interactions and mergers between … Continued
The principal focus of my group is on the theoretical aspects of cosmological probes of dark energy, dark matter, and inflation: (i) constructing new statistical techniques to extract the greatest amount of information from cosmological datasets; (ii) questioning the underlying astrophysical assumptions of observational programs, identifying previously unappreciated systematic errors, and developing techniques to correct … Continued
I am a theoretical cosmologist whose current research focus includes the use of cosmological data sets from cosmic microwave background and large scale structure surveys to understand the matter and energy contents of the universe as well as the period of cosmic acceleration in the early universe and the present.
I am a theoretical astrophysicist. Over the years, I have worked on the dynamics of globular clusters and galactic nuclei, interstellar scintillation, gamma-ray bursts, strong astrophysical shocks, star formation near quasars, planetesimal formation, angular-momentum transport in astronomical accretion disks, tidal effects in stars and gaseous planets, gravitational microlensing, and laboratory astrophysics. At present, I am … Continued
We are interested in astronomical instrumentation, adaptive optics, and high contrast imaging with applications for the detection of extra-solar planets.
We are focused on these three areas: (1) A new Lorentz-covariant nonlinear extension of classical electrodynamics was proposed. It uses only the electromagnetic degrees of freedom – Strong-Field Electrodynamics. This allowed us to calculate the first dissipative pulsar magnetosphere. (2) With Farrar, we proposed that ultra-high-energy cosmic rays can come from rare bright flares on … Continued
Our group studies the first luminous sources in the Universe, including both how they formed and evolved and their effects on their surroundings. We have shown that the most luminous of these sources are at least qualitatively similar to galaxies that we observe later in the Universe’s history, but very recent observations require that fainter … Continued