Astronomy and Astrophysics
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)
- Accretion physics and tidal effects in the most compact binary stars (Kupfer)
- Observational studies of late stellar evolution with large-scale time-domain surveys (Kupfer)
Astronomical Surveys
- 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)
- Development and application of machine learning algorithms for data-driven discovery in large astronomical surveys (Kupfer)
Instrumentation
- Science case development for new X-ray missions and the Next Generation VLA (Corsi & Maccarone)
- Development and exploitation of the BlackGEM telescope array (Kupfer)
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)
- Stochastic Gravitational Wave background with LIGO, LISA and PTA (Romano)
- Multi-messenger studies of gravitational wave sources for LISA (Kupfer)

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. Thomas Kupfer, Ph.D., 2015, Radboud University Nijmegen
- Dr. Tom Maccarone, Ph.D., 2001, Yale University
- Dr. Joe Romano, Ph.D., 1991, Syracuse University
Other Senior Staff Members
- Dr. Vallia Antoniou, Instructor and Director of the Preston Gott Observatory
- Gwen Armstrong, Lead Technician for the Observatory
Department of Physics and Astronomy
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Address
Texas Tech University, Physics & Astronomy Department, Box 41051, Lubbock, TX 79409-1051 -
Phone
806.742.3767 | Fax: 806.742.1182 -
Email
physics.astronomy.webmasters@ttu.edu | physics.academic.advising@ttu.edu