| Program Number | Principal Investigator | Program Title |
|---|---|---|
| 12472 | Claus Leitherer, Space Telescope Science Institute | CCC - The Cosmic Carbon Conundrum |
| 12488 | Mattia Negrello, Open University | SNAPshot observations of gravitational lens systems discovered via wide-field Herschel imaging |
| 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 |
| 12603 | Timothy M. Heckman, The Johns Hopkins University | Understanding the Gas Cycle in Galaxies: Probing the Circumgalactic Medium |
| 12658 | John M. Cannon, Macalester College | Fundamental Parameters of the SHIELD Galaxies |
| 12662 | Oleg Y. Gnedin, University of Michigan | Hypervelocity Stars as Unique Probes of the Galactic Center and Outer Halo |
| 12861 | Xiaohui Fan, University of Arizona | Morphologies of the Most UV luminous Lyman Break Galaxies at z~3 |
| 12870 | Boris T. Gaensicke, The University of Warwick | The mass and temperature distribution of accreting white dwarfs |
| 12878 | Igor D. Karachentsev, Russian Academy of Sciences, Special Astrophysical Obs. | The Near Edge of Infall into the Virgo Cluster |
| 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 |
| 12902 | Matthew A. Malkan, University of California - Los Angeles | WFC3 Infrared Spectroscopic Parallel Survey WISP: A Survey of Star Formation Across Cosmic Time |
| 12903 | Luis C. Ho, Carnegie Institution of Washington | The Evolutionary Link Between Type 2 and Type 1 Quasars |
| 12911 | Luigi R. Bedin, Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova | A search for binaries with massive companions in the core of the closest globular cluster M4 |
| 12912 | Andrea De Luca, INAF, Instituto di Astrofisica Spaziale e Fisica | Imaging the Crab nebula when it is flaring in gamma-rays |
| 12949 | Daniel Perley, California Institute of Technology | Unveiling the Dusty Universe with the Host Galaxies of Obscured GRBs |
| 12980 | Kohji Tsumura, ISAS, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency | Absolute Measurement of the Cosmic Near-Infrared Background Using Eclipsed Galilean Satellites as Occulters |
| 13007 | Lee Armus, California Institute of Technology | UV Imaging of Luminous Infrared Galaxies in the GOALS Sample |
| 13023 | Marco Chiaberge, Space Telescope Science Institute - ESA | Universe in transition: powerful activity in the Bright Ages |
| 13024 | John S. Mulchaey, Carnegie Institution of Washington | A Public Snapshot Survey of Galaxies Associated with O VI and Ne VIII Absorbers |
| 13031 | William M. Grundy, Lowell Observatory | Testing Collisional Grinding in the Kuiper Belt |
| 13033 | Jason Tumlinson, Space Telescope Science Institute | COS-Halos: New FUV Measurements of Baryons and Metals in the Inner Circumgalactic Medium |
| 13039 | Chris Simpson, Liverpool John Moores University | The environment of the z=7.085 QSO ULAS J1120+0641 |
| 13041 | Bethan James, Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge | Diagnosing Ionization Mechanisms in Blue Compact Dwarfs, the Local Analogues to Primordial Galaxies |
| 13046 | Robert P. Kirshner, Harvard University | RAISIN: Tracers of cosmic expansion with SN IA in the IR |
| 13063 | Adam Riess, The Johns Hopkins University | Supernova Follow-up for MCT |
GO 12662: Hypervelocity Stars as Unique Probes of the Galactic Center and Outer Halo
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 obtain follow-up imaging, permitting the determination of precise proper motions, and hence space velocities, for these unusual stars. |
GO 13007: UV Imaging of Luminous Infrared Galaxies in the GOALS Sample
An HST NICMOS image of the interacting LIRG, NGC 6090 |
Luminous infrared galaxies (LIRGs) have total luminosities that exceed 1011.4 LSun, with most of the energy emitted at wavelengths longward of 10 microns. Many (perhaps most) of these galaxies are interacting or merging disk galaxies, with the excess infrared luminosity generated by warm dust associated with the extensive star formation regions. Many systems also exhibit an active nucleus, and may be in the process of evolving towards an S0 or elliptical merger remnant. HST has undertaken extensive observations of these systems in past cycles, using ACS at blue and red wavelengths, and WFPC2 and then WFC3 in the ultraviolet and near-infrared. The present program focuses on the Great Observatories All-sky LIRG Survey (GOALS), a complete sample of low-redshift LIRGs that has been studied extensively over wide wavelength range by observatories as varied as Chandra, GALEX, HST, Spitzer,Herschel, ALMA and the EVLA. The present program aims to use imagign witht he F225W filter on Wide-Field Camera 3 to determine the flux emitted at ultraviolet wavelengths. 84 galaxies will be targetted for observation. Combing the data with observatons at other wavelengths will enable the identification and age-calibration of star clusters and active star-formign regions, and measurement of the dust obscuration and properties within these systems. |
GO 13031: Testing Collisional Grinding in the Kuiper Belt
Preliminary orbital determination for the KBO WW31, based on C. Veillet's analysis of CFHT observations; the linked image shows the improved orbital derivation, following the addition of HST imaging |
The Kuiper Belt consists of icy planetoids that orbit the Sun within a broad band stretching from Neptune's orbit (~30 AU) to distance sof ~50 AU from the Sun (see David Jewitt's Kuiper Belt page for details). Over 500 KBOs (or trans-Neptunian objects, TNOs) are currently known out of a population of perhaps 70,000 objects with diameters exceeding 100 km. Approximately 2% of the known KBOs are binary (including Pluto, one of the largest known KBOs, regardless of whether one considers it a planet or not).TNOs are grouped within three broad classes: resonant objects, whose orbits are in mean motion resonance with Neptune, indicating capture; scattered objects, whose current orbits have evolved through gravitational interactions with Neptune or other giant planets; and classical TNOs, which are on low eccentricity orbits beyond Neptune, with no orbital resonance with any giant planet. The latter class are further sub-divided into "hot" and "cold" objects, depending on whether the orbits have high or low inclinations with respect to the ecliptic. Cold, classical TNOs show relatively uniform characteristics, including red colours, high albedos and an extremely high binary fraction (>30%). They are believed to have formed in situ, and were therefore in place to experience the range of gravitational interactions as the giant planets migrated to their present location. As that migration occurred, subsets are expected to have been trapped in transitory resonance orbits. The present SNAP program aims to use HST to survey up to 56 cold, classical TNOs, aiming to deermine both the binary frequency and the colour distribution of the sample. Collisional grinding models have been invoked to explain the number-magnitude distribution of these obejcts; if those models are valid, then the expectation is that small binaries should also have been disrupted, and the surface of these eroded by collisions to expose the different-compositon 9colour) interior. |
GO 13046: RAISIN: Tracers of cosmic expansion with SN IA in the IR
The first supernova discoevered by the Pan-STARRs survey |
Supernovae are the most spectacular form of stellar obituary. In recent years, these celestial explosions have acquired even more significance through the use of Type Ia supernovae as distance indicators in mapping the `dark energy' acceleration term of cosmic expansion. However, while there are well-established models for the two main types of supernovae (runaway fusion on the surface of a white dwarf in a binary system for Type Ia, or detonation of the core in Type II), some uncertainties remain as to the uniformity of the events. Moreover, as the sample of known supernova has grown, so has the range of photometric systems and the methods used to fit the light curve and account for the ever-present uncertainites inroduced by dust absorption. Consequently, the potential remains for systematic bias in distance estimates due both to intrinsic differences and to measurement errors. The persent program aims to minimise these systematics by compiling standard sequences of observations, primarily in the Y, J, and H filters, of supernovae at redshifts between z~0.3 and 0.5. Focusing on those wavelengths minises the effects, and hence the uncertainties, due to dust absorption. The supernovae themselves are drawn from the Pan-STARRS survey, with the WFC3-IR camera on HST employed to obtain the photometry. |