Ohio State researchers score Sloan Fellowships
An Ohio State astronomer is among researchers recently honored with prestigious fellowships from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Todd Thompson, assistant professor of astronomy and CCAPP science board member, is among the outstanding early career scientists, mathematicians and economists chosen by the foundation to receive two-year, $50,000 grants.
Prof. John Beacom Surprised by President Gee
Prof. John Beacom was awarded the Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching with a surprise classroom visit from President Gee on Wednesday, February 25. The Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching annually recognizes a maximum of ten faculty for their teaching excellence. Students, faculty, and alumni may nominate candidates, and a committee of students, faculty and alumni chooses the recipients. Recipients are recognized with a $3,000 honorarium made possible by gifts from The Ohio State University Alumni Association, University Development, and the Office of Academic Affairs. In addition, the Office of Academic Affairs awards an increase of $1,200 to each recipient's base salary.
Link to Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching 2009
An End to Modernity by Josiah Elheny
Designed in collaboration with CCAPP scientist David Weinberg, McElheny's sculpture traces the 14 billion year history of the expanding universe. The central aluminum sphere, lamps, and glass pieces depict the last scattering surface, the rise and fall of the quasar population, and the growth, transformation, and clustering of galaxies.
First exhibited at the Wexner Center for the Arts, An End to Modernity is now in the collection of the Tate Modern gallery in London.
A video of artist Josiah Elheny discussing his work.
Come visit the Physics Research Building Mezzanine to see it on display along with The Last Scattering Surface
The Last Scattering Surface
Designed in collaboration with CCAPP scientist David Weinberg, The Last Scattering Surface [italics] illustrates cosmic structure at the epoch of recombination and the present day. The intensities of the lamps that illuminate the glowing central sphere are chosen based on the COBE map of the cosmic microwave background. Clusters of glass pieces represent clusters of spiral and elliptical galaxies.
First exhibited at the Donald Young Gallery in Chicago, The Last Scattering Surface [italics] is now in the collection of the Phoenix Art Museum.
Steigman Lectures in Brazil
Gary Steigman recently gave an invited public lecture at the Einstein Exhibit in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The talk was sponsored in part by the State of Sao Paulo Funding Agency, FAPESP.
A summary of the talk and a video (abridged) may be accessed at the FAPESP OnlineResearch Journal.
Ohio State joins the IceCube Collaboration
Led by Prof. James Beatty and CCAPP postdocs Carsten Rott and Mike Stamatikos, OSU as joined the IceCube experiment, a 1 cubic km detector that uses the Antarctic ice cap as a high energy neutrino telescope (http://icecube.wisc.edu/). The physics and astronomy done at IceCube will be greatly enhanced by CCAPP's ongoing collaborative efforts in astroparticle physics.
The DES Cluster Finder Comparison Meeting
The Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics (CCAPP) at The Ohio State University (OSU) is holding The DES Cluster Finder Comparison Meeting in Columbus, Ohio on May 22-24. Participation is by invitation only and is sponsored by CCAPP. This meeting will bring together the various groups within the Dark Energy Survey (DES) that are working on developing and/or testing cluster finding algorithms in order to compare the different approaches being currently pursued. Our final goal is to clearly identify and characterize the relative strength and weaknesses of each of the methods, in order to improve the quality of the optical cluster finding techniques that will be available for the DES. View the workshop page here.
GLAST Launch Blog
[NASA will provide] live coverage of the countdown to launch of the Delta II carrying the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) will begin right here about two hours before liftoff. Follow the countdown milestones on launch day as the exciting final hours before liftoff unfold. Through blog updates and videos, keep track of preparations at the launch pad as the Delta II rocket prepares to carry GLAST into space.
OSU researchers play hide and seek with the universe
Thanks to the new Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics, faculty and students are able to ask and answer questions about what the universe is made of and how it has evolved.
See full article in onCampus newspaper
Special Public Lecture
On Monday, March 24, CCAPP will host a special public lecture by Joel R. Primack and Nancy Ellen Abrams: "The View From The Center Of The Universe." Click here to view their homepage.
A New View of the Cosmos is Brewing
Cosmic Quest
Fueled by out-of-this-world curiosity, millions of dollars, and a lot of coffee (see page 8) Ohio State researchers are reaching for the stars.
Click here to view the full PDF article by Pam Frost Gorder from the new issue of the Alumni Magazine.
Auger Observatory Closes in on Long Standing Mystery, Links Highest Energy Cosmic Rays with Violent Black Holes
Scientists of the Pierre Auger Collaboration announced today (8 Nov. 2007) that active galactic nuclei are the most likely candidate for the source of the highest energy cosmic rays that hit Earth. Using the Pierre Auger Observatory in Argentina, the largest cosmic-ray observatory in the world, a team of scientists from 17 countries found that the sources of the highest-energy particles are not distributed uniformly across the sky. Instead, the Auger results link the origins of these mysterious particles to the locations of nearby galaxies that have active nuclei in their centers. The results appear in the Nov. 9 issue of the journal Science.
Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) are thought to be powered by supermassive black holes that are devouring large amounts of matter. They have long been considered sites where high-energy particle production might take place. They swallow gas, dust and other matter from their host galaxies and spew out particles and energy. While most galaxies have black holes at their center, only a fraction of all galaxies have an AGN. The exact mechanism of how AGNs can accelerate particles to energies 100 million times higher than the most powerful particle accelerator on Earth is still a mystery.
OSU faculty member Jim Beatty leads the international team that developed the electronics for the 1600 cosmic ray detectors spread over an area the size of Rhode Island in western Argentina. The OSU Auger team also includes postdoc Brian Baugham and graduate students Chad Morris and Michael Sutherland.
The Economist, Scientific American, and The New York Times have all picked up on the Auger story.
For more details, visit http://www.auger.org and http://www.sciencemag.org
The Ohio State University Center for Cosmology and AstroParticle Physics to Share $20M Exploration of Space Endowment
The Center for Cosmology and AstroParticle Physics (CCAPP), based on a joint proposal with the Department of Astronomy, will share roughly half of a $20M Exploration of Space endowment, to date OSU's second largest gift. CCAPP is an interdisciplinary Center, with members from the Department of Physics and Astronomy, focused on studying the evolution of the Universe and the nature of its highest energy particles. CCAPP's Exploration of Space endowment, along with other things, will go towards funding in perpetuity several long term CCAPP postdoctoral researchers whose research is focused on exploring the Universe.
According to the OSU press release:
The Ohio State University has received a transformational gift of $20 million to support one of the biggest undertakings imaginable: the exploration of outer space. The anonymous gift is the second-largest single gift to the university in its 137-year history. In addition to unprecedented studies of our universe, it will support the mentoring of young minds and major collaborations on promising research projects.
"We always encourage our talented faculty and students to 'reach for the stars,' and this incredible act of generosity will allow them to do just that," said Ohio State President E. Gordon Gee. "This extraordinary gift will make it possible to explore some of the biggest mysteries of our universe, and the discoveries that result will be enormous. They may even help us to understand the very nature of our existence."
For further details, see http://www.osu.edu/news/newsitems1845 and
Auger North Surface Detector Electronics Workshop
Members of the Auger Collaboration from the U.S. and Europe are meeting to discuss optimization of the design of the electronics for the northern site of the Auger Observatory being proposed for southeastern Colorado. The southern site in Mendoza, Argentina, is nearing completion. Watch the CCAPP website for exciting results from Auger soon!
The workshop will take place September 27th and 28th.
CCAPP's Paul Martini sends greetings from the LBT
To the left is a color composite of last month's observation of Abell 611, created by combining all of the u,g,r data and the strong, blue arc near the cluster center looks absolutely spectacular.
Details: the image is about 2 arcminutes on a side, North is up, East is to the left. The integration times were 20min in Uspec, 60min in g-SDSS,and 15min in r-SDSS. The image quality in the combined images is about 0.6" FWHM in g and r, but they were smoothed them to match the 0.7" image quality of the u-band image. Click on the image for a large view.
OSU Joins the Search for Dark Energy
OSU has been accepted as an Institutional Member in the Dark Energy Survey (DES) Collaboration. DES (www.darkenergysurvey.org) is a multifaceted effort designed to determine the properties of the dark energy that makes up 70% of the Universe but has no compelling theoretical explanation. OSU joins other US Universities at Chicago, Illinois, Michigan, and Penn, International University Collaborations in Brazil, the UK, and Spain, and National Facilities at Argonne, Fermilab, LBL, NOAO, and NSCA.
Members of the OSU Collaboration are D. DePoy, K. Honscheid, C. Kochanek, P. Martini, D. Terndrup, D. Weinberg, and T. Walker. Additional OSU members are expected to be added in the future as the experiment evolves. Klaus Honscheid has kindly agreed to represent OSU on the Management Committee. The OSU Center for Cosmology and AstroParticle Physics (CCAPP) played a central role in OSU's DES membership, providing a rich intellectual environment, along with critical postdoctoral support, and monetary contributions.
Hayes Graduate Research Forum Winners
Graduate students Greg Mack and Luke Corwin were the first and second place winners, respectively, in the Math and Physical Sciences section of the 2007 Edward F. Hayes Graduate Research Forum. This university-wide competition, which is based on both written and oral presentations, involved approximately 40 students from the College of Mathematical and Physical Sciences.
Greg, a CCAPP graduate student of Prof. John Beacom, presented his research in theoretical astrophysics on "Towards Closing the Window on Strongly Interacting Dark Matter: Far-Reaching Constraints from Earth's Heat Flow". While the nature of the dark matter remains unknown, this work shows that its interaction rate with ordinary matter must be extremely weak. This research was conducted in the Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics.
Luke, a student of Prof. Klaus Honscheid, presented his research in experimental particle physics entitled "Searching for Physics Beyond the Standard Model with a Rare Decay." The Standard Model is the theory of particle physics, and the decay in question had not been observed before. Luke performed this measurement as a member of the BaBar Collaboration.
CCAPP Postdoctoral Fellowships in Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics
5-year and 3-year positions. Application deadline 1/1/07. See the CCAPP Postdoctoral Fellowships in Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics to learn more on the CCAPP Jobs page.
CCAPP receives $5.2M in funding
CCAPP receives $5.2M in funding through Ohio State's Targeted Investment in Excellence initiative. Along with matching support from OSU's College of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, this brings CCAPP's University support to $5.7M over the next 5 years.
John Beacom (CCAPP, OSU Physics) receives NSF CAREER Award
"A prestigious award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) will help John Beacom perform a forensic study of the universe...." Read more about the NSF CAREER Award.
CCAPP Postdoctoral Fellows in Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics
Eduardo Rozo (Chicago), CCAPP Postdoctoral Researcher (2006-2009).
David Weinberg (CCAPP, OSU Astronomy) named Sloan Digital Sky Survey Spokesman
Visit Sloan Digital Sky Survey online
OSU's Large Binocular Telescope achieves first light
Click the image to the left to view the first light! Or click here to go to the LBT's first light's web site.
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