Disks and Jets
Accretion disks form around many astronomical objects ranging from stars to massive black holes in the centers of galaxies. The disks are often accompanied by winds and collimated outflows (jets) which propagate perpendicular to the disk to large distances. Disks and relativistic outflows are observed from stellar-mass black holes, and from massive black holes. In young forming stars, disks form from contracting gas clouds as part of the process of star formation and jets emanating from the disk-star interaction play an important role. Planets form from and within these disks.
Some of the research projects conducted by the Department members are:
- FORCAST: A Widefield Infrared Camera for SOFIA
- Triple Spec: A Facility Near-Infrared Spectrograph for the Palomar 200-inch Telescope
- Spitzer: Operation Phase of the Infrared Spectrometer of the Space Infrared Telescope Facility
- Disk Accretion to Magnetized Stars and Formation of Jets
- Dynamics of Protoplanetary Disks Around Magnetized Stars
- Magnetohydrodynamics and Plasma Phenomena in Protostellar Systems
- Large Format Squid Multiplexed Arrays for Polar Astrophysics
- SWIRE: The SIRTF Wide-Area Infrared Extragalactic Survey
- Imaging Spectroscopy in the Submillimeter: Deploying SPIFI on AST/RO
- ZEUS: Studying the Interstellar Medium around Active Galactic Nuclei
- SAGE: A submillimeter Grating Spectrometer for Exploring Distant Galaxies
Research Members: Herter, Houck, Lai, Lovelace, Romanova, Stacey
