Name Robert
David Joseph
Address for Communication Institute
for Astronomy
University
of Hawaii
2680
Woodlawn Drive
Honolulu,
HI 96822
USA
Office Telephone (808)
956-8531
Telefax (808)
988-3893
E-mail joseph@ifa.hawaii.edu
Web address http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/~joseph
Education B.A.,
1961, Physics
Greenville
College
Greenville,
Illinois, USA
M.A.,
1964, Physics
Vanderbilt
University
Nashville,
Tennessee, USA
Ph.D.,
1971, Physics,
Washington
University
St.
Louis, Missouri, USA
Employment 1989-present: Astronomer (with tenure)
Institute
for Astronomy
University
of Hawaii
Honolulu
HI 96822
1973-1990: Lecturer in Physics &
Reader
in Astrophysics
Imperial
College of Science & Technology
London
SW7, England
1971-73: Research Associate in Physics
Washington
University
St.
Louis, Missouri
1963-65: Instructor in Physics
Greenville
College
Greenville,
Illinois
University of Hawaii
I regularly teach one of the sections of Astronomy
110, the general education survey course, to ~70 students.
In 2002 I gave the Astronomy 627 graduate course
in "Cosmology."
My colleague Dr. Toni Cowie, and I are developing a new upper division undergraduate course
called "The Cosmos in Western Culture." It will be offered for the first time in the Spring 2007 term.
In the 1999-2000 academic year I gave a graduate
seminar on "Starbursts in Galaxies."
Imperial
College
I
gave the final-year undergraduate course in astrophysics over several
years. This was the most popular
of the optional courses in the department (the last year I gave this course
(spring '89) it was elected by 167 of the 181 students in that year's
class). In the previous three
years I gave the first-year course in atomic and nuclear physics (~200
students). This course was rated
"by far the most popular physics course" in the student course
evaluation. I also gave weekly
tutorials to either first- or second-year physics students at Imperial every
year.
Supervision
of Graduate Students
One
of the greatest rewards of my academic career has been working with graduate
students, and attempting to give them a strong start on their professional
careers.
K.
S. Sugden, Ph.D., 1978.
Thesis: "Far-Infrared Astronomy with a
Balloon Telescope."
He
is a free-lance writer.
M.
F. Kessler, Ph.D., 1981.
Thesis:
"A Cryogenically-Cooled Fabry-Perot Interferometer for Balloon
Infrared Astronomy."
He was the ESA Project Scientist for the Infrared
Space Observatory, and is now Head of Science Operations at ESA.
D.
L. Rosen, Ph.D., 1981.
Thesis: "A Polarimeter for Infrared
Astronomy."
He
is a statistician in Lancashire, U.K.
G.
S. Wright, M.Phil., 1982, Ph.D., 1986.
M.
Phil. Thesis: "Design Study
for a Large Balloon-Borne Far-Infrared Telescope."
Ph.D.
Thesis: "Infrared Studies on
Interacting Galaxies."
She
is on the staff of the U.K. Astronomy Technology Centre and Principal
Investigator for the Mid-Infrared Instrument for the James Webb Space
Telescope.
S.
A. Morris, Ph.D., 1984.
Thesis: "Infrared Photometry of
Interacting Galaxies."
He
works for a software consultancy firm.
S.
T. Chase, Ph.D., 1985.
Thesis: "A Millimetre Wavelength Search
for the Sunyaev-Zeldovich Effect."
He
has set up his own high-technology company doing cryogenic instrumentation.
C.
A. Collins, Ph.D., 1986.
Thesis: "Infrared Studies of Galaxy
Formation and the Hubble Flow."
He
has a Chair in the Astrophysics Research Institute at Liverpool John Moores
University, U.K.
P.
A. James, Ph.D., 1988.
Thesis: "Observational Studies of the
Galaxy Peculiar Velocity Field."
He
is a Senior Lecturer in the Astrophysics Research Institute at Liverpool John
Moores University, U.K.
A.
H. Prestwich, Ph.D., 1989.
Thesis:
"Extragalactic Near-Infrared Spectroscopy."
She
holds a staff appointment in the Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge MA.
R.
Doyon, Ph.D., 1990.
Thesis:
"Infrared Spectroscopy of Interacting and Merging Galaxies."
He
has an appointment at the University of Montreal, Canada.
D.
L. Clements, Ph.D., 1991.
Thesis:
"Millimetre and Submillimetre Observations in Cosmology."
He
is a research fellow at Imperial College, U.K.
A.
J. Connolly, Ph.D., 1993
Thesis:
"The Large-Scale Galaxy Peculiar Velocity Field."
He
holds a tenure-stream appointment at the University of Pittsburgh.
J.
D. Goldader, Ph.D. 1995, University of Hawaii
Thesis:
ÒNear-Infrared Spectroscopy of Luminous Infrared Galaxies.Ó
He
holds an appointment at the University of Pennsylvania.
George
J. Bendo, Ph.D. 2002, University of Hawaii
Thesis:
ÒThe ISO Atlas of Bright Spiral Galaxies.Ó
He
has a post-doctoral appointment at the University of Arizona
Barry
Rothberg, Ph.D. 2004, University of Hawaii
Thesis:
"The Formation of Elliptical Galaxies from the Mergers of Spirals."
He
has a post-doctoral appointment at the Space Telescope Science Institute
2 Service
Service on U.S.A. and U.K. Science Committees
(last decade only)
Editorial Board member for the journal Contemporary
Physics, 1997-present.
SOFIA Science Council, 1997-2005.
Spitzer Space Telescope Cycle 1 proposal review
committee, 2004.
Chairman, Gemini Science Committee, 2001-2003.
Hubble Space Telescope Extragalactic Review Panel
for Cycle 11, 2001.
Chairman, Independent Review Committee for AIRES
(a Facility Instrument under
development for SOFIA), June 2001.
National Optical Astronomy Observatories UsersÕ
Committee, 1999 & 2000,
Chairman in 2000.
Review Committee for SOFIA scientific instruments,
1997.
Gemini Science Committee, 1997-2001.
U.S. Gemini Science Advisory Committee, 1995-2001.
Observatories Visiting Committee for the U.S.
National Optical Astronomy
Observatories,
1994-1998.
NASA Review Panel for Advanced Technology Research
Program (Infrared and
Submillimeter Section), 1996.
NASA Kuiper Airborne Observatory Review Panel,
1991- 1994.
Chairman
of Review Panel, 1993.
Hubble Space Telescope Extragalactic Review Panel
for Cycle 3, 1992.
U.S. National Academy of Sciences Infrared Panel
for the Decade Review of
Astronomy and Astrophysics
("Bahcall Committee"), 1989-1990.
Chairman, IRTF Time Allocation Committee,
1989-2000.
Councillor, Royal Astronomical Society, 1988-1990.
Service on IfA
Committees
á
IfA Faculty
Chair, 2002-2005.
á
IfA
Executive Committee 1990-2000, 2003-2005.
á
IfA
Faculty Review Committee, 2001-2003.
á
IfA
Time Allocation Committee, 2000-2003.
á
Chair,
IfA Colloquium Committee, 2000-2002.
á
Chair
of the IfA Personnel Subcommittee in 1999.
á
Chair
of IfA Library Advisory Committee, 2000-2003.
á
IfA
Qualifying Exam Committee, 2000-2003, Chair, 2000.
á
IRTF
Division Chief 1990-2000.
Service on University
of Hawaii Committees
á
UH Manoa Tenure and
Promotion Review Panel, 2002.
á
UH Manoa Faculty
Senate 1999-2001. In both years I
was on the Senate's Faculty Service Committee.
á
UH Manoa Faculty
Ambassadors program, 1999-2000.
á
UH Manoa Tenure and
Promotion Review Panel, 1998.
á
Chair, UH Promotion
Review Panel for a promotion appeal case, July 1998.
3
Administration and Management
I
am presently IfA Faculty Chair.
I
was Division Chief (i.e.
Director) of the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) from 1989-2000 (with a
sabbatical in 1996). The IRTF is managed for NASA under a five-year contract to
the University of Hawaii. About 30
people (24 FTE) are employed in the IRTF Division in various activities. The annual operating budget the last
year I was Director was $3.2 million.
4
Contract and Grant Funding
I
was Principal Investigator on a grant for $433k from NASA for analysis of ISO
data.
I
wrote the University of Hawaii proposal to NASA for a new five-year contract to
operate and manage the IRTF in 1995.
This was a fully competitive procurement, which the University of Hawaii
won. The contract was for $14.9 million over the five years 1996-2000.
During
the time I was IRTF Director I and
my staff proposed and were awarded three major IRTF upgrade projects. The first, was carried out in 1992, at
a cost of ~$500k. The Phase II
upgrade (in which I made a public presentation at NASA Headquarters in
competition with similar presentations from all the NASA centers), was
approved, at a cost of ~$2million.
A third upgrade, to the dome drive and braking system, was approved at a
cost of $900k. The funds for these
upgrades, totaling $3.4 million, were administered by the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers,, and so are not included in the summary table below.
I
was a Co-Investigator in two major instrumentation grants for the IRTF. The first was from NASA for developing
and installing a "tip-tilt" active optics system on the IRTF. It was awarded in 1992 for a total cost
of ~$1.2 million. The second was a
proposal to NSF for development of SpeX, a medium resolution (R = 1,700)
spectrometer for the IRTF. This
was awarded by NSF in July Ô94 for $1.1 million.
Total Grant/Contract support as P.I. or Co-I.
at the University of Hawaii.
Grant/Contract $(k)
NASA Spitzer Space Telescope grant (2005) 35
NASA ISO supplement
(1998) 164
NASA IRTF Contract (1996) 14,916
NSF IRTF visitor support
grant (1996) 341
NASA ISO (1995) 269
NSF grant to build SpeX
for the IRTF (1994)
1,100
IRTF Tip-Tilt project
(NASA) (1992)
1,200
When
I left Imperial College in 1989 I was holding grants totaling about £490k. These grants supported design and
development of the prototype for
the ISO instrument PHT-S, a 2.5 - 12 µm spectrometer which flew very
successfully on ISO, and for establishment of a STARLINK node at Imperial
College, among other things.
During my tenure at Imperial College I was awarded, as Principal
Investigator, grants totaling more than £950k.
6) Membership in
Professional Societies
Fellow, Royal
Astronomical Society
Member
of Council, Royal Astronomical Society, 1988-1990
Member, American Astronomical
Society
Member, International
Astronomical Union
II. RESEARCH
ACTIVITIES
1)
Extragalactic astronomy
The objectives of my research program in
extragalactic astronomy are chiefly to elucidate the astrophysical consequences
of interactions and mergers between galaxies. My collaborators and I were the first to show that
interactions trigger bursts of star formation, and one of the prominent themes
of my present research program is to explore the starburst phenomenon, and
other consequences of interactions and mergers between galaxies.
a)
Interacting Galaxies
One of the major discoveries of infrared astronomy
is that many (perhaps most) spiral galaxies may experience massive and rapid
bursts of star formation. I and my
collaborators were the first to demonstrate, in a series of papers that the
starburst phenomenon can be triggered by interactions between galaxies. We identified the celebrated merger
NGC6240 as an extremely luminous infrared galaxy in the IRAS survey. We were also the first to show that
some of the most luminous "infrared" galaxies, such as those
discovered in the IRAS infrared sky survey, with luminosities rivaling those of
quasars and Seyfert galaxies, are the products of mergers between spiral
galaxies. We argued more generally
that such mergers induce starbursts of exceptional luminosity. These ideas, to which there was
initially considerable resistance, have now become an accepted paradigm.
I have also been intrigued by the fundamental
question of the formation of elliptical galaxies. One possible consequence of the merging of spiral galaxies
is the formation of elliptical galaxies, via "violent relaxation" of
the constituent stars. I and my
collaborators have investigated this possibility for a number of the powerful
infrared galaxies for which there is evidence they are mergers. We have shown that some follow the
classical de Vaucouleurs' Òr1/4" surface brightness profile
exhibited by elliptical galaxies, in the infrared. More recently we showed that for Arp220 and NGC6240 the
central velocity dispersions (based on infrared spectroscopy) and densities are
located in a classical "cooling diagram" in the region where
ellipticals are located. Our
infrared studies thus suggest that these powerful infrared merging galaxies genuinely
do seem to be turning into ellipticals.
In recent years, my study of interacting galaxies
has largely shifted to infrared spectroscopic studies, discussed in (1b) below.
b)
Extragalactic infrared spectroscopy
This is a research technique, rather than a
scientific subject, but I have been one of the pioneers of this field, which
has great potential. I and my
collaborators have been working to develop diagnostic tools using infrared
spectroscopy for understanding a variety of phenomena in extragalactic
astronomy. We were the first to
discover and to call attention to powerful emission from molecular hydrogen in
interacting and merging galaxies.
We have developed and/or applied several diagnostic tools for
investigating the stellar populations in starburst galaxies, using spectral
features due to Brackett gamma, CO, HeI, and the ratio of the mass to the
infrared luminosity. Among the
most interesting result is the evidence we have adduced that the star formation
process in these "violent" star formation events is biased against
the formation of stars of less than a few solar masses, and the upper mass
cutoff to the initial mass function is typically well below 100 Mo.
Most recently we (collaborators: Goldader, Doyon
& Sanders) defined a complete sample of the most luminous galaxies
(luminosities > 2 x 1011 Lo) in the IRAS-selected Bright Galaxy
Sample, and obtained infrared spectroscopy across the entire K (2 µm)
atmospheric window. This was the
first time such a large and comprehensive spectroscopic database was been
obtained for a statistically complete sample of infrared galaxies. The major aims were to use the
diagnostics mentioned above to reach statistically significant conclusions
about the stellar populations resulting from the starbursts, to discriminate
between starbursts and buried AGNs as the underlying energy sources, and to
understand the astrophysics of the excitation of powerful H2 emission in these objects. This study further underscored the
conclusion that starbursts produce stellar populations deficient in high-mass
stars and is biased also against formation of stars of a solar mass or
less. One of the noteworthy
results which has emerged from spectroscopy of the "ultraluminous"
subsample (luminosities > 1012 Lo) is that no putative underlying
broad-line AGN have been revealed beside the two (out of a sample of 15) which
were already known from optical spectroscopy. If these objects are powered by dust-embedded AGN and are
the origin of quasars, as is the popular opinion in some quarters, then
infrared spectroscopy, with ten times less extinction, might have been expected
to reveal several additional broad-line AGN. That none have emerged in our infrared spectroscopy must
make this popular hypothesis somewhat more questionable.
2)
Observational Cosmology
A few years ago I decided that infrared
observations had a great deal of unrealized potential for a variety of
cosmological studies, and I began to develop several programs of infrared
observations to investigate the formation of galaxies and large-scale structure
in the Universe.
a)
The galaxy peculiar velocity field
My first excursion into this subject was an
infrared re-study of the tantalizing and controversial "Rubin-Ford
Effect." Our initial infrared
photometry of the Rubin-Ford galaxy sample confirmed and stengthened the
original Rubin-Ford result, which we re-interpreted in a highly-cited paper in terms of a large-scale
streaming motion which would have excluded the popular "cold dark
matter" model. We further showed
that a sample of first-ranked cluster ellipticals provided confirmatory
evidence for such streaming. (An
identical approach using new data and exhaustive analysis has been published by
Lauer & Postman, who get a very similar result.) However, when we did further analysis of systematic effects
in the way Rubin and co-workers selected this galaxy sample, we showed that the
Rubin-Ford result was entirely attributable to selection effects in the
Rubin-Ford galaxy sample, thus laying to rest a controversial result which had
been discussed in the literature for nearly 20 years.
b)
Infrared searches for primeval galaxies
Detection of primeval galaxies at the epoch of
galaxy formation is one of the outstanding problems of observational
cosmology. For redshifts of
formation ³5, primeval galaxies will be infrared objects. We first attempted a deep infrared
survey to search for primeval galaxies before the advent of infrared detector
arrays. This search gave only
upper limits, but constrained various models of primeval galaxies by up to an
order of magnitude over previous optical searches, for formation redshifts of 5
to 10.
Encouraged by several
detections of strong Lyman alpha from high redshift galaxies, and by evidence
that some of these systems have an evolved stellar population, we (Parkes,
Collins & Joseph) have since carried out a deep infrared search for
redshifted Lyman a in the J atmospheric window, covering redshifts ~7 to 9,
using several narrow-band filters with IRCAM on UKIRT. Since the Lyman a line is expected to
be narrow, it will be much stronger than the continuum. Thus, primeval galaxies which would not
have been detected in the broad-band infrared searches conducted to date could
be detected in this narrow-band search.
Another signature of a genuine primeval galaxy would be appearance in
one filter but not in the others.
Pitching the filter passbands between atmospheric OH emission lines
reduced the background significantly and enabled us to achieve more detection
sensitivity. Unfortunately, this
search, like all others so far, has given only upper limits. Our results, combined with those of
previous searches, indicate that if Lyman a emission from primeval galaxies does not suffer appreciable
extinction, then such putative primeval galaxies could not have had star
formation rates much larger than those of present-day spirals.
3)
Planetary Astronomy
Although the solar system had not been a principal
scientific interest of mine before I came to Hawaii to become the IRTF Division
Chief, I thought it would be interesting to begin a planetary observing
program, since the IRTF is also a planetary telescope NASA Solar System
Exploration Division, and 50% of the observing time is reserved for the solar
system. I initiated a
collaboration with Steve Miller & Jonathan Tennyson (in the University College
London theoretical molecular physics group) to use the H3+ molecular ion, for
which they had done the fundamental quantum mechanical calculations of energy
levels, to study the aurorae on Jupiter.
This has turned out to be a most fruitful collaboration. One of the major results of our program
has been the evidence that the aurorae on Jupiter are not powered by charged
particles originating in the Io plasma torus, as conventional wisdom assumed,
but instead the aurorae are powered by the solar wind itself. Another result is that cooling via the
H3+
ion can provide a significant and hitherto neglected contribution to the
cooling of the Jovian ionosphere.
4)
Infrared Space Astronomy
When I was at Imperial College, I was one of the
dozen or so proposers for two space astronomy missions to the European Space
Agency. Both these missions,
ISO and FIRST, were selected by ESA as major flight missions. ISO
was launched in November Ô95 and performed superbly. FIRST is the fourth ÒcornerstoneÓ mission in ESAÕs
"Horizon 2000" flight program.
It has been re-named ÒHerschelÓ and is expected to be launched ca. 2007.
a) Infrared Space Observatory (ISO)
I was one of the group of European astronomers who
first proposed ISO as a new European Space Agency mission, in 1979. I worked as an invited ESA scientific
consultant on the mission, on the Assessment Study, a pre-Phase A Study, and on
the Instruments and Science Team for the Phase A Study itself. This work culminated in the selection
of ISO in 1983 to be the next major ESA space astronomy mission.
Since completion of the ISO Phase-A study I was an
ISO Co-Investigator in the consortium providing one of the focal plane
instruments, the photo-polarimeter (ISOPHOT). At Imperial College we designed and built a prototype model
of ISOPHOT-S, two near-infrared spectrometers, spectral range 2.5 - 12 µm,
which were one of the four ISOPHOT sub-units. The Qualification Model, Flight Model and Flight Spare were
built to this design by CASA, a Spanish aerospace company, under the
supervision of our collaborators at the Instituto de Astrofisica de
Canarias. The IAC group tested and
calibrated these models, and delivered them to the ISOPHOT prime contractor,
Dornier Systems.
I also proposed to our Consortium use of the
ISOPHOT long wavelength camera (wavelength ~ 200 µm) in a Serendipity Mode for
the ISO mission, to supplement the IRAS survey. I produced the detailed scientific case for the 200 µm
serendipity mode which was submitted as part of the Serendipity Mode proposal
to the ESA Science Team. This was
eventually endorsed by the ESA science team and is an operational mode of
ISOPHOT. The Serendipity Mode has
resulted in several papers, but I was not involved in this aspect of ISO after
moving to Hawaii in 1989.
b)
Far-Infrared and Submillimetre Telescope (FIRST)
In 1982 a group of us realized that an 8-m deployable telescope, with associated instrumentation for
sub-millimeter spectroscopy, was now technically feasible and scientifically
very promising, and we submitted a proposal for such a mission to ESA. In competition with about 12 such
proposed astronomy missions, FIRST was one of two selected for Assessment
Studies by the Astronomy Working Group.
I was a member of the ESA "Core" Study team, and after the
Study report was presented, FIRST was approved for further technical
study. FIRST was adopted as one of
the four "cornerstone" mission in the ESA science program
"Horizon 2000." I was
invited by ESA to continue as a member of the study team, but in view of my
responsibilities on the ISO instrument project, which were becoming
significant, I felt unable to do justice to both FIRST and ISO, and so I
resigned from the FIRST study team in 1985. The telescope is now reduced in size and is not deployable, but
the mission is the fourth "Cornerstone" in ESA's Horizon 2000 flight
program, and has an expected launch date ca. 2005.