| Program Number | Principal Investigator | Program Title |
|---|---|---|
| 12471 | Dawn K. Erb, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee | The Bottom of the Iceberg: Faint z~2 Galaxies and the Enrichment of the IGM |
| 12472 | Claus Leitherer, Space Telescope Science Institute | CCC - The Cosmic Carbon Conundrum |
| 12473 | David Kent Sing, University of Exeter | An Optical Transmission Spectral Survey of hot-Jupiter Exoplanetary Atmospheres |
| 12488 | Mattia Negrello, Open University | SNAPshot observations of gravitational lens systems discovered via wide-field Herschel imaging |
| 12503 | Oleg Y. Gnedin, University of Michigan | The True Origin of Hypervelocity Stars |
| 12539 | Nils Bergvall, Uppsala Astronomical Observatory | A novel approach to find Lyman continuum leaking galaxies at z~0.3 with COS |
| 12561 | Wei-Chun Jao, Georgia State University Research Foundation | The Weight-Watch Program for Subdwarfs |
| 12562 | Geoffrey C. Clayton, Louisiana State University and A & M College | The UV Interstellar Extinction Properties in the Super-Solar Metallicity Galaxy M31 |
| 12568 | Matthew A. Malkan, University of California - Los Angeles | WFC3 Infrared Spectroscopic Parallel Survey WISP: A Survey of Star Formation Across Cosmic Time |
| 12572 | Michele Trenti, University of Cambridge | The Brightest of Reionizing Galaxies Pure Parallel Survey |
| 12591 | Elena Gallo, University of Michigan | A Chandra/HST census of accreting black holes and nuclear star clusters in the local universe |
| 12593 | Daniel B. Nestor, University of California - Los Angeles | A Survey of Atomic Hydrogen at 0.2 < z < 0.4 |
| 12662 | Oleg Y. Gnedin, University of Michigan | Hypervelocity Stars as Unique Probes of the Galactic Center and Outer Halo |
| 12668 | Slawomir Stanislaw Piatek, New Jersey Institute of Technology | Proper Motion Survey of Classical and SDSS Local Group Dwarf Galaxies |
| 12787 | Marc Postman, Space Telescope Science Institute | Through a Lens, Darkly - New Constraints on the Fundamental Components of the Cosmos |
| 12813 | Brian Schmidt, Australian National University | Network of 13 high precision STIS spectrophotometric standards for ground based surveys |
| 12870 | Boris T. Gaensicke, The University of Warwick | The mass and temperature distribution of accreting white dwarfs |
| 12880 | Adam Riess, The Johns Hopkins University | The Hubble Constant: Completing HST's Legacy with WFC3 |
| 12883 | Denis Grodent, Universite de Liege | Unraveling electron acceleration mechanisms in Ganymede's space environment through N-S conjugate imagery of Jupiter's aurora |
| 12891 | Keith S. Noll, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center | Search For Binaries Among Ultra-Slow Rotating Trojans, Hildas, and Outer Main Belt Asteroids |
| 12893 | Ronald L Gilliland, The Pennsylvania State University | Study of Small and Cool Kepler Planet Candidates with High Resolution Imaging |
| 12896 | Kim-Vy Tran, Texas A & M University | At the Turn of the Tide: WFC3/IR Imaging and Spectroscopy of Two Galaxy Clusters at z~2 |
| 12911 | Luigi R. Bedin, Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova | A search for binaries with massive companions in the core of the closest globular cluster M4 |
| 12927 | Andrew B. Newman, California Institute of Technology | The role of the environment in the growth of compact red galaxies at z~2 |
| 12941 | Ian William Stephens, University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign | Probing Isolated Massive Star Formation in the LMC |
| 12965 | David Ehrenreich, Observatoire de Geneve | Properties and dynamics of the upper atmosphere of the hot-Neptune GJ 436b |
| 12970 | Michael C. Cushing, University of Toledo | Completing the Census of Ultracool Brown Dwarfs in the Solar Neighborhood using HST/WFC3 |
| 12995 | Christopher Johns-Krull, Rice University | Testing Disk Locking in the Orion Nebula Cluster |
| 13013 | Gabor Worseck, Max-Planck-Institut fur Astronomie, Heidelberg | How Extended was Helium II Reionization? A Statistical Census Probing Deep into the Reionization Era |
| 13018 | Annette Ferguson, University of Edinburgh, Institute for Astronomy | Deciphering the Assembly History of Galactic Disks: The Resolved Record in the Outer Disk of M31 |
| 13029 | Alex V. Filippenko, University of California - Berkeley | A Snapshot Survey of the Sites of Recent, Nearby Supernovae |
| 13046 | Robert P. Kirshner, Harvard University | RAISIN: Tracers of cosmic expansion with SN IA in the IR |
| 13050 | Remco van den Bosch, Max-Planck-Institut fur Astronomie, Heidelberg | The Most Massive Black Holes in Small Galaxies |
GO 12503: The Origin of Hypervelocity Stars
Artist's impression of a hypervelocity star |
Hypervelocity stars are stars that have velocities that exceed the escape velocity of the Milky Way by a very substantial margin. Stars can only achieve such velocities through violent gravitational interactions with other bodies. Indeed, to achieve velocities of 1,000 km/sec or more, the proposed mechanism involves binary stars interacting with the black hole at the Galactic Centre: one of the binary components is lost to the black hole, and the other ejected at from the core. The existence of such objects was hypothesised over 20 years ago, but the first candidate was only identified in 2005: SDSS J090745.0+024507, an apparently non-descript sunlike star, lying at a distance of 71 kpc from the Sun in the Galactic, and moving at a velocity of 850 km/sec, or more than twice the escape velocity. Since then, a number of other candidates have been identified. HST was used to image 11 stars in Cycle 17 (GO 11589); the present program will use WSFC3 to obtain third-epoch follow-up imaging, permitting the determination of precise proper motions, and hence space velocities, for four of these unusual stars. |
GO 12568: WISP - A Survey of Star Formation Across Cosmic Time
A region of massive star formation |
Star formation is the key astrophysical process in determining the overall evolution of galactic systems, the generation of heavy elements, and the overall enrichment of interstellar and intergalactic material. Tracing the overall evolution through a wide redshift range is crucial to understanding how gas and stars evolved to form the galaxies that we see around us now. The present program builds on the ability of HST to carry out parallel observations, using more than one instrument. While the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph is focused on obtaining ultraviolet spectra of unparalleled signal-to-noise, this program uses the near-infrared grisms mounted on the Wide-Field Camera 3 infrared channel to obtain low resolution spectra between 1 and 1.6 microns of randomly-selected nearby fields. The goal is to search for emission lines characteristic of star-forming regions. In particular, these observations are capable of detecting Lyman-alpha emission generated by star formation at redshifts z > 5.6. A total of up to 40 "deep" (4-5 orbit) and 20 "shallow" (2-3 orbit) fields will be targeted in the course of this observing campaign. |
GO 12965:Properties and dynamics of the upper atmosphere of the hot-Neptune GJ 436b
Artist's impression of the exo-Neptune in orbit around Gliese 436 |
Gliese 436 is an early-type M dwarf (spectral type M2.5) with a mass approximately 40% that of the Sun lying at a distance of ~10 parsecs. In August 2004, the Lick/Carnegie planet search team (led by Geoff Marcy and Paul Butler) announced the discovery of a ~22 Earth-mass planet in a 2.64 day orbit around this star. Unlike most "hot jupiters", this "hot Neptune", one of the first such objects discovered, is on an elliptical orbit, e=0.16, which, with a semi-major axis of 0.0278 AU, brings it within 3.5 million kilometres of the central star. Gl 436 is significantly cooler than the Sun, with a surface temperature close to ~3400 degrees Kelvin; even so, the "surface" temperatures on Gl 436b are expected to reach ~740 K (~370 C). In May of 2007, a team led by F. Pont demonstrated that Gl 436b transits the parent star. The initial ground-based observations allowed them to derive a diameter approximately 4 times that of Earth, directly comparable with Uranus and Neptune. Follow-up observations with NICMOS and FGS on HST and with IRAC on Spitzer refined the radius measurement to 4.9 Earth radii. This provides key insight into the likely origins of Gl 436b, since combining the diameter with the measured mass gives the mean density, and, by inference, the likely composition. For Gl 436b, the indications are that the planet is a displaced "ice giant". The present program aims to probe the atmospheric structure by using STIS to searching for Lyman alpha absorption that might be the signature of evaporation driven by stellar irradiation. |
GO 13018: Deciphering the Assembly History of Galactic Disks: The Resolved Record in the Outer Disk of M31
M31: the Andromeda spiral galaxy, superimposing GALEX UV imaging on the optical data |
M31, the Andromeda galaxy, is the nearest large spiral system to the Milky Way (d ~ 700 kpc), and, with the Milky Way, dominates the Local Group. The two galaxies are relatively similar, with M31 likely the larger system; thus, Andromeda provides the best opportunity for a comparative assessment of the structural properties of the Milky Way. Moreover, while M31 is (obviously) more distant, our external vantage point can provide crucial global information that complements the detailed data that we can acquire on individual members of the stellar populations of the Milky Way. With the advent on the ACS and, within the last 2 years, WFC3 on HST, it has become possible to resolve main sequence late-F and G dwarfs, permitting observations that extend to sub-solar masses in M31's halo and disk. The galaxy has been targeted by many HST programs, including imaging the extended halo, probing the nuclear regions, surveying the disk for specific objects (LBVs, Miras, low-mass X-ray binaries), and, most recently, the PHAT Multi-Cycle Treasury program, a multi-waveband survey of approximately one third of disk and bulge, focusing on the north-east quadrant. The present program builds on past observations of a field in the outer disk, some 26 kpc from the M31 nucleus. Analysis of the stellar colour-magnitude diagram suggests a star formation history that was roughly constant until 5 Gyrs ago, after which the SFR generally declined but underwent a sharp burst some 2 Gyrs ago. The timescale of the latter burst coincides approximately with a potential dynamical interaction between M31 and M33. The present observations taget two additional fields with the goal of testing whether they show evidence for a similar star formation history. |