University of Virginia Department of Astronomy Leander Mccormick Observatory Charlottesville, Virginia, 22903-0818 ͓S0002-7537͑95͒02201-3͔
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1 University of Virginia Department of Astronomy Leander McCormick Observatory Charlottesville, Virginia, 22903-0818 ͓S0002-7537͑95͒02201-3͔ This report covers the period 1 September 2003 to 31 Theory, Long Term Space Astrophysics, Origins of Solar August 2004. Systems, and XMM programs, JPL, Chandra, Space Tele- scope Science Institute, and the NSF Stars/Stellar Systems 1. PERSONNEL and Gravitational Physics Programs. During this time the departmental teaching faculty con- sisted of Steven A. Balbus, Roger A. Chevalier, John F. 2. FACILITIES Hawley, Zhi-Yun Li, Steven R. Majewski, Edward M. The Leander McCormick Observatory with its 26-in Murphy, Robert W. O’Connell, Robert T. Rood, Craig L. Clark refractor on Mount Jefferson is now used exclusively Sarazin, William C. Saslaw, Michael F. Skrutskie, Trinh X. for education and public outreach. It is heavily used for both Thuan, Charles R. Tolbert, and D. Mark Whittle. our graduate and undergraduate courses. The Public Night Research scientists associated with the department were program has been expanded. During the year a plan to Gregory J. Black, Richard J. Patterson, P. Kenneth Seidel- greatly expand the education and public outreach program mann, Anne J. Verbiscer, John C. Wilson, and Kiriaki M. was initiated. This is described in § 4. Xilouris. The 0.7-m and the 1-m reflectors on Fan Mountain were Robert E. Johnson from Materials Science has his re- used during the year for our undergraduate majors and search group in planetary astronomy located within the de- graduate observational astronomy courses. A major upgrade partment. In retirement both Laurence W. Fredrick and of instrumentation is underway and is described in § 3.7. Philip A. Ianna remained active members of the Department. A gift from the Frank Levinson Fund of the Peninsula Ianna was serving as a rotator at the NSF. Community Foundation has made it possible for the Depart- Matthew J. Nelson joined the Department in June as a ment to initiate several programs. Skrutskie and John Wilson Research Scientist. Francisca Kemper will join the depart- have initiated a program in near-IR instrumentation. Matt ment in January, 2005 as an Assistant professor. Kelsey Nelson has recently joined that effort. The Department has Johnson joined the department in September 2004 as a recently joined the Large Binocular Telescope consortium Hubble Fellow. She will become an Assistant Professor in and Steward Observatory in an agreement made through the 2005. Wesley N. Colley departed in May taking a position in Research Corporation. Observations at Steward facilities ͑in- the private sector. cluding the 2.3-m Bok, 1.8-m Vatican Advanced Technol- Postdocs in residence included Jeffrey S. Bary, Elizabeth ogy, MMT, and Magellan telescopes͒ were made during the L. Blanton, Matthew H. Burger, Tracy Clark, Jean-Pierre de year. Villiers, David A. McDavid, Thomas H. Reiprich, Helio Rocha-Pinto and Ricardo P. Schiavon. Mary Kutty Michael from Robert Johnson’s planetary astronomy group was also 3. RESEARCH in residence. Blanton was a Chandra Fellow. McDavid, 3.1 Stars and Stellar Evolution Rocha-Pinto & Reiprich all received support from the Levinson Fund of the Peninsula Community Foundation. Balbus supervised the work of graduate student S. Fro- Other personnel included Instrument Maker Charles Lam, mang ͑IAP, Universite´ de Paris͒ who developed a three- Electronics Design Technician James Barr, Office Manager dimensional magnetohydrodynamics code including self- Barbara Nicholson, & Secretary Jacquelynn Harding and gravity. With this computational tool, it is now possible to computer hardware/software assistant Howard Powell. investigate the simultaneous development of the magnetoro- At the end of this period there were 27 resident graduate tational and Jeans instabilities in star formation processes. students, 3 non-resident graduate students, 2 planetary as- This work, which comprises the bulk of Fromang’s PhD the- tronomy graduate students, and one visiting graduate student. sis, showed that the two instabilities interfere with another, Jeffrey Crane, John Silverman & Tony Sohn completed rather than mutually enhance transport. This contributes to their Ph.D.s during the year. inefficiency in the star formation process. Dr. Fromang suc- Long term visitors included Nicolai Chugai, Ben Dorman, cessfully defended his thesis in June 2004. Eileen Friel, Yukata Fujita, Yuri Izotov, Bill Kunkel, Balbus supervised the BS degree of M. Kunz, who carried Francesco Sylos Labini, Kristen Menou, Fumitaka out a calculation of the stability of a magnetized, rotating gas Nakamura, Ruth Peterson, Valery Shematovich, & Caroline in the presence of ambipolar diffusion. Such a gas has com- Terquiem. plex stability behavior, and the calculation involved novel The Virginia Institute for Theoretical Astronomy ͑VITA͒ technical features. Most importantly, ambipolar diffusion continued operations during this period with support from was found to have a significantly destabilizing role, a result the University of Virginia and NASA’s Astrophysical of some significance for galactic molecular disks. 2 ANNUAL REPORT Balbus and Hawley continue to investigate, through com- observations of the thermal X-ray and radio synchrotron bined analytical and numerical studies, the nature of the an- emission that result from the interaction of the supernova gular momentum transport mechanisms, MHD turbulence, with the surrounding wind. Both the X-ray and radio lumi- and global dynamics of astrophysical disk systems, including nosities are sensitive to the mass loss and initial masses of protoplanetary systems. the progenitor stars. Both the mass loss density and the varia- Balbus, K. Menou, and H. Spruit ͑MPI͒, completed a tion of density with stellar mass are consistent with expecta- study of the stability of stellar differential rotation. The dif- tions for the progenitor stars deduced from direct observa- fusive effects of thermal conduction, viscosity, and electrical tions of 4 supernovae. Current observations are consistent resistivity were included in the calculation. Interestingly, it with mass being the only parameter; observations of a super- was found that all of these processes must be included for a nova in a metal poor region might show how the mass loss truly self-consistent calculation. The resulting stability analy- depends on metallicity. sis indicates that the observed solid body rotation of the solar Chevalier, with N. Chugai ͑Institute of Astronomy, Mos- radiative zone ͑and by inference other stellar radiative zones͒ cow͒ and P. Lundqvist ͑Stockholm͒, proposed a model to may have been driven to this minimum energy configuration account for both the bolometric light curve and the Ca II by magnetorotational and related instabilities. emission features of the peculiar Type Ia supernova ͑SN͒ Chevalier has continued to explore the relation between 2002ic, which exploded in a dense circumstellar envelope. various types of core collapse supernova and the observed The model suggests that the SN Ia had the maximum explo- properties of young supernova remnants with ages ϳ103 sion energy expected for a CO white dwarf detonation and years. Massive star supernovae can be divided into four cat- that the ejecta expand in the approximately spherically sym- egories depending on the amount of mass loss from the pro- metric ͑possibly clumpy͒ circumstellar environment. The Ca genitor star and the star’s radius: red supergiant stars with II features are emitted by the shocked SN ejecta that under- most of the H envelope intact ͑SN IIP͒, stars with some H went deformation and fragmentation in the intershock layer. but most lost ͑IIL, IIb͒, stars with all H lost ͑Ib, Ic͒, and blue The scattering of line photons by the unshocked SN ejecta supergiant stars with a massive H envelope ͑SN 1987A-like͒. explains a strong skewing towards the blue seen in the Ca II Various aspects of the immediate aftermath of the supernova doublet. The Ca II triplet modeling implies the fraction of the are expected to develop in different ways depending on the O I 8446 Å line is about 25% of the 8500 Å feature on day supernova category: mixing in the supernova, fallback on the 222, which is consistent with the observed flux in the Ca II central compact object, expansion of any pulsar wind nebula, 8550 Å triplet from the flux of 8500 Å blend. The Ca II interaction with circumstellar matter, and photoionization by doublet and triplet fluxes are used to derive the electron tem- shock breakout radiation. The observed properties of young perature (Ϸ4430 K͒ of the dense fragments of the shocked supernova remnants allow many of them to be placed in one ejecta and the ratio of their cumulative area to the area of of the supernova categories; all the categories are represented undisturbed shell. In this model, the large luminosity of the except for the SN 1987A-like type. Of the remnants with Ca II 8550 Å triplet is related to the large area ratio of the central pulsars, the pulsar properties do not appear to be shocked ejecta material in the intershock zone. related to the supernova category. There is no evidence that Hawley is part of an on-going collaboration to develop the supernova categories form a mass sequence, as would be the next generation of fully general relativistic MHD simu- expected in a single star scenario for the evolution. Models lation codes. Co-Investigators in this project include C. for young pulsar wind nebulae expanding into supernova Gammie and S. Shapiro ͑U. Illinois͒. At present this project ejecta indicate initial pulsar periods of 10 Ϫ100 ms and ap- is focused on accretion into Kerr black holes. proximate equipartition between particle and magnetic ener- Combining both numerical and analytic approaches, Haw- gies. Ages are obtained for pulsar nebulae, including an age ley, Balbus, and De Villiers explored the properties of the of 2400 Ϯ 500 yr for 3C58, which is not consistent with an magnetorotational instability, and its implications for angular origin in SN 1181. There is no evidence that mass fallback momentum transport, energy transport, and global dynamics plays a role in neutron star properties.