Using the high spatial resolution and sensitivity of the Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based telescopes such as Keck and Gemini, I am studying dusty circumstellar disks as the birthplaces of planetary systems. The observations elucidate disk geometries and dust composition and in an ensemble fashion teach us about the evolution of disks and the timescales for planet formation within them. Ultimately, I would like to connect the disks around other stars to our understanding of planet formation in our own Solar System and in other systems.
Visual and near-infrared imaging from the Hubble Space Telescope show the detailed morphologies and colors of resolved disks. I am PI on programs from HST cycles 9-15 to image disks. Mid-infrared images from the ground show the temperature distribution of dust in the inner, planet-building regions of disks. Together, multi-wavelength observations reveal dust compositions including rich organic chemistries.
Large ground based telescopes provide better sensitivity than the IRAS mission combined with high angular resolution. From the mid-infrared, we can learn about the temperature and density profiles of disks. By studying the grain composition directly with spectroscopy over a range of distances from the star, I try to learn about the processes of planet building and collisions that occur in disks.
With Spitzer, I am searching for disks around special classes of nearby stars with ages from as young as 5 Myr to 1 Gyr. Ultimately, we need to understand disk removal mechanisms and timescales as well as the stochastic collisions that create disk dust. From the ground, I do follow-up with Carnegie's Magellan Telescopes to study the stellar properties.
I search for young stars in the Stellar neighborhood that might be good laboratories for studying disk evolution. I have a new project to obtain parallactic distances to some of these stars; distances and the stellar luminosities that follow from them are fundamental to understand disk and stellar evolution.
I use the technique of speckle imaging on large ground based telescopes to make very high resolution near-infrared images. I have applied this to studying the orbital motion of young binary stars.
I collaborate on searches for massive planets and brown dwarfs around nearby stars using high dynamic range imaging with HST and Keck.
My PhD thesis consisted of near-infrared speckle observations of six nearby AGN made with the Hale 200-inch Telescope on Palomar Mountain and the 10-m W. M. Keck Telescope on Mauna Kea.
Diffraction-Limited Imaging and Photometry of NGC 1068 , Weinberger, A. J., Neugebauer, G., and Matthews, K., 1999, AJ, 117, 2748
