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research.html
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<div id="sidebar">
<ul>
<li class="thissection">This Section</li>
<li><a href="research.shtml">Research Home</a></li>
<li><a href="research.shtml?research/galaxies">Galaxy Pages</a></li>
<li><a href="research.shtml?research/movingObjects">Solar System
Pages</a></li>
<li><a href="research.shtml?research/variableStars">Variable Stars
Pages</a></li>
<li><a href="research.shtml?research/transients">Transients Pages</a></li>
<li><a href="clue.shtml?clue/CluE1">Scalable Science Pages</a></li>
<li><a href="research.shtml?research/software">Software Pages</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
<h1>Research Efforts of the UW SSG</h1>
<h2><a name="gadgets"></a>ASCOT: Collaborative Astronomy</h2>
<p>
Gadgets and widgets have become popular in social networking
(e.g. iGoogle, Facebook). They provide a simple way to customize your
view of data and analysis tools. In ASCOT (an AStronomical
COllaborative Toolkit) we provide a framework for using gadgets in
Astronomy. Unlike iGoogle, where all of the widgets are independent,
our science tools can communicate with each other. This interactive
framework can be customized to however you want to see the sky. To try
ASCOT you can use this
<a href="http://ascot.astro.washington.edu/dashboard/8">demo page</a>
<!--
<a href="http://sky.astro.washington.edu:8081/ascot/cmddemo.html">demo
page</a>
or you can play
with our <a href="http://ssg.astro.washington.edu/research.shtml?research/flickr">astrometry Flickr demo</a>.</p>
-->
(best viewed with Chrome and, for the GoogleSky plugin, using a Mac or Windows machine).
Following are some movies of ASCOT in action:
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.astro.washington.edu/users/krughoff/ASCOT_movies/a1689_ascot.mov">Explore SDSS data around Abell 1689</a></li>
<li><a
href="http://www.astro.washington.edu/users/krughoff/ASCOT_movies/top1000sdss_ascot.mov">Examine
photometric outliers</a></li>
<li><a
href="http://www.astro.washington.edu/users/krughoff/ASCOT_movies/density_ascot.mov">Histograms
and Density plots</a></li>
<li><a
href="http://www.astro.washington.edu/users/krughoff/ASCOT_movies/makedash_ascot.mov">Custom
Dashboards</a></li>
</ul>
<p>Please send feedback to <a
href="mailto:[email protected]?subject=ASCOT">Andrew Connolly
</a> </p>
<h2><a name="clue"></a>Scalable Science at UW</h2>
<p>
Cloud computing has revolutionized the way business is done on the
Internet. By linking hundreds to thousands of computers together with
petabyte data storage, massively intensive (in both data and
computation) tasks can be addressed. This represents a departure from
traditional thinking in the area of high performance computing in
which the data, cpus, and memory all reside on the same physical
machine with fast communication between all components. Instead the
processing units only have access to a small amount of local storage
and can be considered to be isolated from the other compute nodes in
the cluster. This fundamental difference in cluster architecture
requires a shift in how massively parallel problems are approached.
The Cluster Exploration (<a href="http://
www.nsf.gov/cise/clue/index.jsp">CluE</a>) initiative is a joint
effort between NSF, Google, and IBM to allow academics access to cloud
computing resources for research purposes. </p>
<p>Learn more about our research on scaleable science on
the <a href="clue.shtml?clue/CluE1">CluE</a> and <a href="http://db.cs.washington.edu/astrodb">AstroDb</a> Pages.
</p>
<h2><a name="galaxies"></a>Galaxies and Cosmology Research at UW</h2>
<p>
Observational cosmology is addressing many fundamental questions about
the nature of the universe through a series of ambitious wide-field
optical and infrared imaging surveys (e.g. from the properties of dark
matter to the nature of dark energy). The challenge these surveys pose
is how do we analyze and interact with data that is being taken at a
rate 1000 times greater than existing experiments. How do we determine
the interdependencies between the observable properties of stars and
galaxies in order to better understand the physics of the formation of
the universe? At UW we address these questions in a number of
different ways; from studying the physical properties of galaxies as a
function of redshift, to reconstructing the mass distribution from
weak gravitational lensing, to classifying galaxy spectra or looking
for unusual sources in photometric and spectroscopic surveys.<p>
<p>Read more about our cosmology and galaxy reseach in the <a
href="research.shtml?research/galaxies">Galaxy Pages</a>.
</p>
<h2><a name="galaxies"></a>DRaGONS: Distant Radio Galaxies Optically Non-detected in the SDSS </h2>
The DRaGONS (Radio Galaxies Optically Non-detected in the SDSS) survey
uses a novel selection technique for identifying high-redshift radio
galaxy (HzRG) candidates. By selecting bright (1.4 GHz > 100 mJy)
radio sources from the radio surveys with no optical counterpart in
the SDSS we can preferentially remove low redshift contaminants to the
high-redshift radio galaxy population. Near-IR K-band imaging with the
NOAO 4m telescope (using FLAMINGOS) is used to confirm the sources and
estimate their redshift. The goal of DRaGONS is to use massive radio
galaxies provide a powerful tool to study the high redshift universe.
With strong radio emission visible to z>7, they are known to form in
the most dense regions of the early universe. In the standard
Lambda-CDM paradigm, they would be the first systems to form stars,
possibly early enough to probe the epoch of reionization (Barkana &
Loeb 2006). The presence of this early star formation, in conjunction
with powerful AGN activity inferred from the high radio luminosity,
makes HzRGs good candidates for examining feedback processes, and
their role in the formation of the oldest and most massive galaxies
(Vardoulaki et al., 2006, De Lucia et al. 2006, Nesvadba et al, 2008).
The DRaGONS survey aims for a complete census of HzRGs over a huge
volume of the high redshift universe (~6x1010 Mpc3. DRaGONS is also
the first survey to systematically search for HzRGs in a way unrelated
to radio spectral index. This approach is vital in providing an
unbiased census of radio galaxies at high redshift.<p>
<p>Read more about our DRaGONS survey <a
href="research.shtml?research/dragons">DRaGONS</a>.
</p>
<h2><a name="mo"></a>Solar System Research at UW</h2>
Recent surveys of the solar system have provided important
advances in our knowledge of astronomical objects 'close to home' --
the small bodies in our solar system. Understanding the properties
of these small bodies can provide insights into our understanding of
the process of planet formation and evolution, the history of our Solar
System, and the relationship between our Solar System and planetary
systems discovered around other stars. These large populations of small bodies serve
as 'test particles', recording the dynamical history of the
giant planets and illustrate the size distributions of planetesimals, which
were the building blocks of planets. The physical properties of
these asteroids also reveal information about the properties of the
solar nebula at the time of planet formation and the histories of the
asteroids themselves.
<p>
<p>
Read more about the results of the projects listed below on the <a
href="research.shtml?research/movingObjects">Moving Objects Pages</a>.
</p>
<h2><a name="transients"></a>Transients Research at UW</h2>
<p>
Image subtraction techniques have enabled the vast majority of current
time--domain optical surveys by allowing them to concentrate resources
on only those objects that are varying in position or time. The basic
method is derive a PSF--matching kernel that photometrically aligns
two images taken of the same part of the sky, but at different times.
In their difference lies anything that has varied between these
epochs. The essence of this technique lies in estimating the
Psf--matching kernel. The available degrees of freedom in this
problem include the basis functions used to decompose the kernel,
whether to apply a "smoothing" (convolution) or "sharpening"
(deconvolution) kernel (one being the inverse operation of the other),
and how to model the spatial variation of the kernel and/or its basis
functions. </p>
<p> Read more about the results of the projects listed below on the <a
href="research.shtml?research/transients">Transients Pages</a>.
</p>
<h2><a name="vs"></a>Variable Stars Research at UW</h2>
<p>
As the progenitors to CVs, many of which eventually evolve to become
Type 1a supernovae (SNe), pre-CVs are integral in understanding some
of the more vexing questions associated with the current observed CV
population, such as magnetic CV progenitors and the "period gap". The
prolific use of Type 1a SNe for groundbreaking cosmology has also lead
to an increased interest in the pre-CV environment as we have yet to
fully understand the origin and nature of Type 1a progenitors. A
detailed study of pre-CV systems allows us to test widely used
theories on common envelope (CE) evolution and orbital angular
momentum loss (magnetic breaking). Most of what we know about these
theories are generally inferred from the properties of the current CV
population, which is complicated by the significant effects of mass
transfer.</p>
<p>
Read more about the results of the projects listed below on the <a
href="research.shtml?research/variableStars">Variable Star Pages</a>.
</p>
<h2><a name="misc"></a>Software at UW</h2>
<p>
We frequently generate new tools and algorithms for analyzing
astronomical data sets. These include dimensionality reduction tools
such as LLE and Principal Component Analysis and tools for calculating
magnitudes and errors for the LSST. </p>
<p>To find out more about tools that
may be useful in your research check out our <a
href="research.shtml?research/software">software pages</a>.
</p>