Welcome
Welcome to the web home of the UM-Dearborn Astronomy Research group! This (deliberately) bare-bones, sporadically-updated website exists to support group members in their research efforts.
Research Areas
Galactic Archaeology, particularly of the Inner Milky Way: The crowded inner regions of our own galaxy are key expositors for the formation and evolution of spiral galaxies in general. However, because we see the inner Milky Way through the foreground spiral arms, populations in the inner few kiloparsecs of the Milky Way are challenging observational targets, necessitating new techniques to disentangle (both in observation and in analysis). Example initiatives:
Compact stellar binaries, in which a relatively normal orbits in close proximity with a compact stellar remnant (a white dwarf, neutron star, or black hole) are excellent laboratories for the accretion/outflow process which plays out at all astrophysical length-scales, because their dynamical timescales are short enough that long-term behavior becomes amenable to human observation. Example initiatives:
New observational constraints on star clusters, young and old: Star clusters trace the star formation process and thus the recycling of elements through cosmic time. Proper motions allow separation of the cluster population from the contaminating foreground and background populations, as well as dynamical constraints on the cluster itself (Clarkson et al. 2012 ApJ provides an early example of cluster mass measurement near the Galactic Center via ground-based proper motions). Group members have pursued projects to improve upon observational techniques to disentangle cluster members. Example initiatives:
Extrasolar planets: With the expected launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in the next few years, the diversity of detected extrasolar planetary systems is expected to increase still further, and we expect further challenges to our understanding of the formation and evolution of planetary systems. Example initiatives:
Updates
April 19, 2019: Group members win academic awards
Group members Noah Vowell and Thomas Sutter recognized with academic achievement awards at the 2019 Natural Sciences Awards Ceremony on Friday April 19th, 2019:
Apr 15, 2019: Group member success in graduate applications
Congratulations to Austin Blevins and Thomas Sutter, who will both begin PhD programs in their chosen fields of study in 2019 Fall:
September 20, 2018: Kristen Dage's SMC X-1 article published by MNRAS
This is the paper resulting from Kristen's investigations at UM-Dearborn into possible disk warp / accretion flow correlations in the prototypical accretion disk-warp system SMC X-1. For more, see Dage, K. C. et al. 2019 MNRAS 482, 337 (on the arXiv at arXiv:1809.07335): Longterm properties of accretion discs in X-ray Binaries - III. A search for spin-superorbital correlation in SMC X-1.