Laboratory for Multiwavelength Astrophysics (LAMA)
A subset of the faculty, staff and students from the School of Physics & Astronomy and the Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science within the College of Science at Rochester Institute of Technology participate in the Laboratory for Multiwavelength Astrophysics (LAMA). The mission of LAMA is to foster the utilization and advancement of cutting-edge techniques in multiwavelength astrophysics by RIT faculty, research staff, and students, so as to improve human understanding of the origin and fate of the universe and its constituents.
LAMA exists to support the following astrophysics activities at RIT:
- exploitation of existing and forthcoming national and international ground- and space-based astronomical observing facilities/missions;
- exploitation and mining of the present and forthcoming generations of multiwavelength data archives;
- development of scientific requirements for future astronomical observing facilities/missions and future data archival and mining methods;
- analysis and modeling of multiwavelength astronomical and astrophysical data.
Personnel
Participating Faculty: Stefi Baum (CIS), Roger Dube (CIS), Joel Kastner (CIS; LAMA Director), Jacob Noel-Storr (CIS), Chris O'Dea (Physics), Michael Richmond (Physics), Andrew Robinson (Physics)
Research Staff: Dinalva Aires De Sales, Preeti Kharb, Rupal Mittal, Rudy Montez, Ben Sargent
Graduate Students: Marcus Freeman, Davide Lena, Dave Principe, Kristina Punzi, Valerie Rapson, David Saroff, Sravani Vaddi, Billy Vazquez
Undergraduate Students: Stephanie Darling, Marc Magagnoli, Trent Seelig
Research Activities
LAMA research in the news:
RIT Doctoral Student Wins Time with Two NASA Observatories
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Spectacular nebula views captured with X-ray vision (see also the Chandra X-ray Center's image gallery and the RIT News story ``Sweeping X-ray Imaging Survey of Dying Stars is Uncharted Territory'' )
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Star Birth: 'Heartbeat' Of Sunlike Protostar V1647 Orionis Seen By X-Ray Telescopes (see also RIT News story: Oh, Baby! A Young Star Flaunts its X-ray Spots in McNeil’s Nebula)
Links to recent LAMA publications and funding awards:
- LAMA publications, 2011
- LAMA publications, 2012
- List of grants awarded to LAMA PIs in 2011
Highlights of LAMA research in 2011 can be found via the following links:
- Planetary Science & Space Physics: Space Weather
- Galactic Astrophysics: Star & Planet Formation | Stellar Outflows | Chandra Planetary Nebula Survey
- Extragalactic Astrophysics: Brightest Cluster Galaxies | Supermassive Black Holes
- Astronomical Research Facilities