Overview

The astrophysics research group at Texas Tech opened in January of 2013. We presently focus on ground-based and space-based electromagnetic and gravitational wave data of astrophysics in extreme environments and on the stellar populations of nearby galaxies.

Research Topics

The group has a few key areas of research. The areas of major current effort are listed below. The members of the group take broad interest in new developments in a variety of additional areas of astronomy, so please contact us if you're a prospective graduate student and don't see your topics of interest listed.

Extreme and Explosive Astrophysics

• Observational studies and modeling of Gamma-ray Bursts (Corsi)
• Radio observations of relativistic supernovae (Corsi)
• Observational studies of dynamics of dense star clusters (Maccarone)
• Accretion onto black holes and neutron stars and jet production mechanisms (Maccarone)
• Neutron star structure, oscillations, and microphysics (Owen)

Stellar Populations in Nearby Galaxies

• Understanding the X-ray binary populations of nearby galaxies (Maccarone)
• The Chandra and Swift Galactic Bulge Surveys, characterizing the close binary populations of the Milky Way (Maccarone)

Instrumentation

• Science case development for new X-ray missions and the Next Generation VLA (Corsi & Maccarone)

Gravitational-Wave Astronomy

• Searches for gravitational waves associated with gamma-ray bursts and magnetars using LIGO (Corsi)
• Electromagnetic follow-up of gravitational-wave transients (Corsi)
• Searches for continuous gravitational waves from rapidly rotating neutron stars with LIGO (Owen)

Extrasolar planets (only available for undergraduate research)

• Transit timing measurements in extrasolar planet systems (Morehead)

Tenure Track/Tenured Faculty Members

• Dr. Benjamin Owen, Ph.D., 1998, California Institute of Technology
• Dr. Alessandra Corsi, Ph.D., 2007, University of Rome Sapienza
• Dr. Tom Maccarone, Ph.D., 2001, Yale University

Other Senior Staff Members

• Denija Crnojevic, Ph.D., 2010, University of Heidelberg, Research Assistant Professor
• Robert Morehead, Ph.D., 2016, Penn State University, Instructor and Director of the Preston Gott Observatory
• Gwen Armstrong, Lead Technician for the Observatory