Research
May 1st, 2006
My thesis work at Rice University focused primarily on spectral and temporal analysis of prompt gamma-ray burst (GRB) emission, with a particular interest in exploring GRBs as potential distance indicators and their association with SNe. GRBs (if you’re not in the know) are intense flashes of gamma-ray radiation that occur several times a day from random parts of the sky. It’s been known for several years now that these flashes actually originate from distant parts of the universe and are most likely associated with the deaths of supermasive stars in the early Universe. My thesis focused (among other things) on using recently proposed correlations between observable GRB properties and their absolute luminosity to estimate the distance of a large sample of these events, allowing us to deduce the their luminosity function and formation rate as a function of cosmic time. It is hoped that this formation rate will trace the massive star formation rate of the universe far beyond the range of traditional techniques. This work has involved extensive use of signal processing techniques, monte carlo routines, and maximum likelihood methods to account for Malquist type biases that arise from flux limited samples. I am currently working with Joshua Bloom at UC Berkeley on various aspects of GRB astrophysics including some optical afterglow observations, something that is new ground for me. Below you can find my CV, a list of publications, a link to powerpoint files to some of my talks on the above topics and also links to many of the programs I’ve written during the course of my graduate career that I consider to be ‘open source’.
Documents
· Curriculum Vitae
· Resume
· Publication List
· PhD Thesis
· 2004 NSF Proposal
Resources
· Program Files
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