| Program Number | Principal Investigator | Program Title |
|---|---|---|
| 13665 | Bjoern Benneke, California Institute of Technology | Exploring the Diversity of Exoplanet Atmospheres in the Super-Earth Regime |
| 14067 | Chris Ahn, University of Utah | Searching for a Supermassive Black Hole in the Brightest Ultracompact Dwarf Galaxy |
| 14074 | Roger Cohen, Universidad de Concepcion | Opening the Window on Galaxy Assembly: Ages and Structural Parameters of Globular Clusters Towards the Galactic Bulge |
| 14076 | Boris T. Gaensicke, The University of Warwick | An HST legacy ultraviolet spectroscopic survey of the 13pc white dwarf sample |
| 14080 | Anne Jaskot, Smith College | LyC, Ly-alpha, and Low Ions in Green Peas: Diagnostics of Optical Depth, Geometry, and Outflows |
| 14090 | Gilda E. Ballester, University of Arizona | New FUV diagnostics of the atmosphere of the hot-Jupiter HD 209458b with HST/COS |
| 14098 | Harald Ebeling, University of Hawaii | Beyond MACS: A Snapshot Survey of the Most Massive Clusters of Galaxies at z>0.5 |
| 14119 | Luciana C. Bianchi, The Johns Hopkins University | Understanding Stellar Evolution of Intermediate-Mass Stars from a New Sample of SiriusB-Like Binaries |
| 14123 | James Colbert, Jet Propulsion Laboratory | Does All The Lyman Continuum Emission Escape From Young, Low Mass Starbursts? |
| 14127 | Michele Fumagalli, Durham Univ. | First Measurement of the Small Scale Structure of Circumgalactic Gas via Grism Spectra of Close Quasar Pairs |
| 14128 | Mark Hollands, The University of Warwick | The dawn of rocky planet formation |
| 14133 | David Polishook, Weizmann Institute of Science | Establishing an evolutionary sequence for disintegrated minor planets |
| 14140 | Jessica Werk, University of Washington | Using UV-bright Milky Way Halo Stars to Probe Star-Formation Driven Winds as a Function of Disk Scale Height |
| 14151 | Anna Frebel, Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Constraining Pop III supernova energies and the formation of the first low-mass stars with the iron-poor star HE1327-2326 (with [Fe/H] = -5.4) |
| 14161 | Ruth C. Peterson, SETI Institute | The Intersection of Atomic Physics and Astrophysics: Identifying UV Fe I Lines from Metal-Poor Turnoff Stars |
| 14163 | Mickael Rigault, Humboldt Universitat zu Berlin | Honing Type Ia Supernovae as Distance Indicators, Exploiting Environmental Bias for H0 and w. |
| 14178 | Matthew A. Malkan, University of California - Los Angeles | WFC3 Infrared Spectroscopic Parallel Survey: The WISP Deep Fields |
| 14193 | Catherine Espaillat, Boston University | Footprints of the Magnetosphere: the Star- Disk Connection in T Tauri Stars |
| 14199 | Patrick Kelly, University of California - Berkeley | Refsdal Redux: Precise Measurements of the Reappearance of the First Supernova with Multiple Resolved Images |
| 14201 | Sangeeta Malhotra, Arizona State University | Lyman alpha escape in Green Pea galaxies (give peas a chance) |
| 14213 | Pier-Emmanuel Tremblay, The University of Warwick | Defining New IR-Bright Flux Standards for Cosmology Applications |
| 14219 | John P. Blakeslee, Dominion Astrophysical Observatory | Homogeneous Distances and Central Profiles for MASSIVE Survey Galaxies with Supermassive Black Holes |
| 14223 | Brenda L. Frye, University of Arizona | The Planck Dusty Gravitationally Enhanced subMillimeter Sources (GEMS) |
| 14235 | Sangmo Tony Sohn, The Johns Hopkins University | Globular Cluster Orbits from HST Proper Motions: Constraining the Formation and Mass of the Milky Way Halo |
| 14240 | Bart P. Wakker, University of Wisconsin - Madison | Mapping the circumgalactic medium of two large spiral galaxies |
| 14254 | Tommaso L. Treu, University of California - Los Angeles | Accurate cosmography from gravitational time delays: 2.3% on H0 from deep WFC3 images of lensed quasars |
| 14265 | Tae-Sun Kim, INAF, Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste | Crossing the redshift desert: ionizing background radiation and intergalactic hydrogen at z ~ 1 |
| 14327 | Saul Perlmutter, University of California - Berkeley | See Change: Testing time-varying dark energy with z>1 supernovae and their massive cluster hosts |
| 14337 | Trent J. Dupuy, University of Texas at Austin | Dynamical Masses for Free-Floating Planetary-Mass Binaries |
| 14340 | Alexandre Gallenne, European Southern Observatory - Chile | Accurate masses and distances of the binary Cepheids S Mus and SU Cyg |
| 14361 | Ming Sun, University of Alabama in Huntsville | Tales of tails: the Coma episodes |
| 14485 | Marc W. Buie, Southwest Research Institute | Astrometry of 2014MU69 |
| 14492 | Michael H. Wong, University of California - Berkeley | A New Dark Vortex |
| 14499 | Zolt Levay, Space Telescope Science Institute | Hubble Heritage imaging of Mars opposition 2016 |
GO 14140: Using UV-bright Milky Way Halo Stars to Probe Star-Formation Driven Winds as a Function of Disk Scale Height
HST images of the Galactic star-forming region, S106 |
Star formation is energetic process. Massive stars in high-mass, high density star clusters can generate Galactic-scale winds that play a strong role in sculpting subsequent star-formign events, and hence affect the ovrall evolution of the parent galactic system. Such effects are likely to be present in, and influencing, galaxies over a wide range of redshift, extending back to at least z~6. The detailed density profiel and spatial extent of these winds remains difficult to assess. The present prorgam aims to probe this question through ultraviolet spectroscopy of blue horizontal branch stars within the Galactic halo. The targets are old, evolved, metal-poor, low-mass stars that have evolved off the main sequence and through the giant branch phase. Long separated frm their own star-forming regions, they serve as hot, blue, background beacons against which the hot gas generated by current star-forming regions can be seen in silhouette. The Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) will be used to obtain spectra at far-UV wavelengths, enabling the search for the characteristics absorption features of C IV, Si II, Fe II and Si IV. measurement of the line profiles will allow determination of the kinematics and densities of the intervening ionised materials. |
GO 14163: Honing Type Ia Supernovae as Distance Indicators, Exploiting Environmental Bias for H0 and w.
Supernova in M101 |
Supernovae have long attracted the attention of both amateur and professional astronomers as a means of studying the violent eruption and death of massive stars and degenerates. However, in the last decade they have also acquired considerable importance as distance indicators, tracing the expansion of the universe to redshifts well beyond the reach of more conventional yardsticks, such as cepheids, and providing a key underpinning for the hypothesised existcen of dark energy. Understanding the supernovae themselves, and, in particular, their progenitors, is key to accurately interpreting their luminosities and distances. Recent observations have suggested that there may be a correlation between the brightnesses of Type Ia supernovae and some characteristics of their local environment; specifically, supernovae found in close proximity to star formation appear to be sub-luminous. The present SNAP program uses the UVIS camera on WFC3 to image the locations of supernovae that have been used to map the Hubble flow, and will use the UV-to-optical flux ratio to characterise the local environment, potentially offering a means of tightening the distribution in the Hubble diagram. |
GO 14193: Footprints of the Magnetosphere: the Star-Disk Connection in T Tauri Stars
An artist's representation of magnetic interactions between a T Tauri star and the surrounding disk |
The T Tauri stage of evolution occurs early in a star's lifetime, within ~10 Myrs of its birth, when it still retains a dense, dust and gas-rich circumstellar disk. During this phase, there is significant accretion of material onto the central star, controlled to some extent by the stellar magnetic field. This leads to heating of the inner regions of the accretion disk, and significant emission at ultraviolet and X-ray wavelengths. Spitzer observations probe the structure of the cool dust disk at larger separations, but little is known regarding the properties of gas and dust in the innermost regions. The present program aims to probe those regions through coordinated multi-wavelength monitoring of two T Tauri stars in the Chamaeleon stellar association, VW Cha and T 56. Simultaneous observations will be obtained by Spitzer in the mid-infrared, Swift at UV and X-ray wavelengths, and with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph on Hubble, covering UV and optical wavelengths. The goal is to use the measured variability to constrain the conditions in the innermost 0.5 AU of the circumstellar disk. |
GO 14240:Mapping the circumgalactic medium of two large spiral galaxies
An HST image of NGC 2770, one of the spiral galaxies targeted in this program |
Galaxy formation, and the overall history of star formation within a galaxy, clearly demands the presence of gas. The detailed evolution therefore depends on how gas is accreted, recycled, circulated through the halo and, perhaps, ejected back into the intergalactic medium. Tracing that evolutionary history is difficult, since gas passes through many different phases, some of which are easier to detect than others. During accretion and, probably, subsequent recycling, the gas is expected to be reside predominantly at high temperatures. The most effective means of detecting such gas is through ultraviolet spectroscopy, where gas within nearby systems can be detected as absorption lines superimposed on the spectra of more distant objects, usually quasars. Extensive observations of galaxies at modest redshift (0.15 < z < 0.35) have shown that material extends to radii of hundreds of kpc, with a total mass in metals that is at least comparable with the mass in the central galaxy. The present program aims to extend this analysis by obtaining detailed observations of the halos of two nearby spiral galaxies, NGC 2770 and NGC 3631. A total of nine background QSOs will be targeted for UV observations with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph. The data will be sensiive to the presence of OI, CII, SiII, SiIII, SiIV and C IV, probing the composition and ionisation of the galactic halos. |