research opportunities: events / seminars:

Grad student orientation Fall 2011

Research opportunities: http://kipac.stanford.edu/collab/student_resourcesEvents / seminars: http://kipac.stanford.edu/collab/seminars

* 40+ full members (faculty and staff)

* Physics Dept. faculty: Burchat, Cabrera, Church, Gratta, Linde, Michelson, Petrosian, Romani, Scherrer, Wagoner

* SLAC PPA Faculty / staff: Bloom, Burke, Digel, Madejski, Roodman, Schindler, Tajima

* Joint SLAC + Physics: Abel, Allen, Blandford (director), Funk, Kahn, Kuo, Senatore, Wechsler

* ~30 postdocs; ~25 students * General Group Meetings:

-Tuesday 11 AM - Varian 3rd floor conf room

- Friday 10:30 AM – Kavli 3d floor conf room

GS Orient 11-2

Astrophysics and Cosmology at Stanford

Two active centers Kavli Bldg @SLAC Physics/Astrophysics (P/AP) & Varian buildings on campus

General Group Meetings Tuesday 11:00 AM Varian 3rd floor conf room Friday 10:30 AM – Kavli 3d floor conf room. many other weekly meetings of individual groups

Astrophysics colloquia – Thursdays 4:00PM Rotates between P/AP 101/102 on campus and Kavli Bldg at SLAC Do check out

http://kipac-prod.stanford.edu/collab

GS Orient 11-3

Fermi LAT Large Area Telescope

assembled at SLAC Launched in June 2008 Blandford, Bloom, Digel,

Funk, Michelson (PI), Petrosian, Romani, Madejski, Tajima, + many other SLAC staff and post-docs

e+e–

GS Orient 09-4

Gamma-Ray Sky Lots of New Source Discoveries Lots of Thesis Opportunities

GS Orient 09-5

GS Orient 09-6

Romani Group: High energy Astrophysics

Current focus: Fermi/LAT study of Pulsars and Blazars: Astrophysical Populations and Accelerator Physics

LAT data – new discoveries piling up Supporting observations across the E-M spectrum, Modeling, Physics taking on rotators this year

talk with any of the characters pictured at http://fsrq.stanford.edu/gamma/ : Group (w/ Michelson & Funk)

visit P/AP 233, 235; rwr@astro.stanford.edu

-rays BHs & spin (Rel. Jets) Pulsars & Wind Nebuale

GS Orient 11-7

Fermi Gamma-ray Space telescope

and the extreme particle accelerators

Fermi is studying lots of new sources – extreme particle accelerators

Broad-band picture needed - radio to optical, IR, UV, X-rays, …

Greg Madejski’s main area of interest: black holes and astrophysical jets

Future: Stanford is involved in development and planning for the next Caltech-led satellite mission NuSTAR, sensitive in the hard X-ray band – will be launched in 2012

Definitely looking for students / rotators! madejski@stanford.edu; (650) 926-5184

Radio, optical, and X-ray image of a jet in the active galaxy Virgo-A

Fermi installed in the rocket fairing

Stefan Funk: the Crab Nebula flares and the Fermi Bubbles

• Fermi “Bubbles” • - diffuse, large-scale gamma-ray

emission in our Galaxy• No publication by the LAT team yet• Exact properties will yield important • information about their origin

Crab Nebula: mechanisms for particle acceleration? Extend energy spectrum to lower energies, understand time structure

Back to the Galaxy with Fermi

After Fermi: CTA – The Cherenkov Telescope array

• We plan to build a next-generation camera• Interested? Contact Stefan Funk, funk@slac.stanford.edu

GS Orient 09-10

X-ray astrophysics Greg Madejski, Steve Allen, Roger Romani,

Roger Blandford, Stefan Funk, Hiro Tajima, Vahe’ Petrosian

X-ray data for celestial objects reveal extreme physics, but also allow us to use those objects to study cosmology

We use data from orbiting X-ray satellites: Chandra, XMM-Newton, Suzaku

Future: NuSTAR with Caltech in 2012, Astro-H with Japanese colleagues, 2015

Specific projects: how clusters of galaxies form and evolve?

How is energy released by matter falling into black holes?

NASA’s, European and Japanese facilities

Solar Flares Clusters of Galaxies

AGN

Roger Blandford - Fermi Topics

Mainly astrophysical theory: Gamma ray emission by relativistic

jets made by massive spinning black holes in galactic nuclei?

Comparing 3D relativistic MHD simulations with observations

Particle acceleration and magnetic amplification at supernova remnants

Making a self-consistent model of strong shock

Explaining flares in the Crab Nebula New approaches are needed to

explain rapid variation Classical radiation reaction

Astrophysical challenges are shedding new light on this old problem

Talk to Paul Simeon

Sarah Church’s Group Opportunities (1-2 rotators F, Sp)

Inflation???

• Development of radio amplifiers for investigating:

• Inflation through polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation (QUIET II, CHIP)

• Epoch of reionization through measurements of highly redshifted CO lines (large-format radio interferometer)

• Star formation history through molecular gas studies (Octopus at the Green Bank Telescope)

• Rotators participate in design tasks, prototype fabrication and testing

• In the longer term, thesis projects will include deployment, data taking and analysis

• Visit our lab – Varian 203/204 orstop by my office – Varian 344Note: I am away winter 2012

Sarah Church’s group (schurch@stanford.edu): The Chajnantor Inflation Probe (CHIP)

CHIP Large format interferometer

for CMB measurements Prototyping underway with

deployment expected 2011 Possible rotation opportunities in

instrument development leading to deployed experiment

GS Orient 11-15

Kuo Group: Superconducting Detectors for Cosmology and Astrophysics

R(T)Operating point

Transition Edge Sensor Thermometer

temperature

absorber

Cold bath (<0.5 K)

thermometerradiationWe use superconductivity

to detect tiny radiation from the Big Bang & compact astronomical objects

Cosmic Microwave Background Polarization

Several experiments in different phases,Some observing, some under construction

Optical (visible) spectroscopy/polarimetry of compact objects, one photon at a time

Direct dark matter detection: SuperCDMS Discovery Potential

Mass of a Dark Matter Candidate (GeV)

CDMS: Cold Dark Matter SearchImprovements in sensitivity by three decades (few 10-44 to 2.10-47) in the next 10 yearsThe origin of Dark Matter is a central question to particlephysics, astrophysics andcosmology

0

Ge

Recoil Energy

(tens of keV)

Dark Matter (mass ~GeV – TeV)

CDMS is now a joint SLAC – Stanford Physics projectContact: Prof. Blas Cabrera, Dr. Rich Partridge

GS Orient 11-17

Who, Where, Rotation Slots?High energy astrophysics: Roger Blandford (SLAC,SU) – R FWSp? Elliott Bloom (SLAC) – R FWSp Stefan Funk (SLAC) Andrei Linde (SU) Greg Madejski (SLAC) -- R FWSp Peter Michelson (SU) – R FW Vahe Petrosian (SU) -- R Roger Romani (SU) -- R WSp Robert Wagoner (SU) – R?CMB: Sarah Church (SU) -- R Chao-Lin Kuo (SU) – R F,WinSolar: Philip Scherrer (SU) – R FWSp Peter Sturrock (SU) Rotation positions noted from responses received. Others likely

have Rotation Positions as well! Please check

Where most likely foundWhen rot slot likely avail.